The All Consuming: A Shifter MC Novel (Pureblood Predator MC Book 4) (15 page)

“There is no good in me, my beautiful sister,” Vuk says flatly. “You
must
kill me. Embrace vengeance and retribution. It’s the only sane decision. The only just, righteous action. Prevent my rise. Kill me—”

Lily lifts her hand in Vuk’s direction, silencing him.
 

Lily’s wrong about Vuk.
 

I see it in how he’s looking at her. He’s torturing her. Even now. But she sees only this weak, pathetic Skin kneeling before her, and the choice between life and death heavy in her hands and heart.

“I am not an executioner,” Lily whispers, turning to face Vuk. “I won’t murder in cold blood. I won’t become the monster you want me to be.”

“He’s not your son,” Trish says, taking a few steps toward Vuk with the AK raised. “He’s not a child. You don’t need to protect him. He’s fucking filth. He’s playing you, Lil. He
wants
something—”

“Maybe,” Lily says, looking at her brother with fear and suspicion and hatred tightening her features. “Maybe he is playing me. Even now. But I won’t murder him. I’d never forgive myself…and my son Lachlan would never forgive me.”

“Time away from the wilds has made you weak, sister,” Vuk says sadly. “Dulled your once-glorious predator instincts.”

“My instincts are as sharp as ever,” Lily snaps. “They’re telling me if you seek death…that alone is reason enough for you to live.”

The trembling under my feet is growing more pronounced. Over the hills in the distance a hint of red dust spins into the broiling red-black sky.

“You love me,” Vuk says with awe in his voice. “Despite everything I’ve done. The horrors I’ve committed. You love me.”

“I’m willing…to give you another chance. In this new era. A chance to repent. I won’t nurse hatred in my heart. Won’t let it eat me alive from the inside. I won’t give you that power over me.”
 

“Love is weakness, my sister,” Vuk says, standing and brushing his palms together as if he had simply kneeled to tie his shoe. “Shall we? The black blooded draw near.”

I’m pacing back and forth, confusion drilling into my mind, tearing at my fur when a clear voice rings out, “Love might be weakness, hun. But unlike my girl, I sure as fuck don’t love you.”

I turn toward Trish.

The AK lights up in her hands.

***

Lily leaps to shield her brother from Trish’s gunfire. Bullets thud into the pavement and then I’m charging Trish, my animal half loose, throwing myself into the line of fire, fearing for my sister and needing Vuk alive to convince Shiori to return Pimniq.
 

Trish’s face is a mask of hatred and murderous need, but when she sees me step into the line of fire her face pales and the AK goes click-click as the cartridge empties into my heavy chest. The bullets barely pierce my animal’s fur.
 

Trish looses a quiet moan of defeat and says, “He has to die. He has to die,” over and over, like she’s chanting—

A man’s pain-wracked scream fills my ears.

Vuk.
 

I swat the AK from Trish’s grasp and banish my animal.
 

“I want the killing to stop,’ Trish mumbles, looking past me, staring vacantly into the desert. “I want the next age to be…better…”

Lily’s crouched beside Vuk, her hands pressed hard to a bullet wound under his right shoulder. Black blood pulses between her fingers, runs down Vuk’s pale skin.
 

Vuk licks his lips. Studies our sister.
 

His eyes blaze bright with pain and madness.
 

“The power,” Vuk says. “The strength to rule. I know your animal craves it, Lily. I scent it in her. Not this,” Vuk looks at his bleeding wound with an odd mix of disgust and horror, “this intolerable weakness. Your choice is
unnatural
. It violates law. The strong over the weak. That is the balance. I was only doing…what was
right
…what my pack…needed…”

“Anik?” Lily says. “Bring me a tourniquet.” Then she turns and glares at Trish. “You done shooting an unarmed man? Or do I need to handcuff you to the bike—”

“I’m sorry, Lil,” Trish stammers, raising her hands. “I don’t know what…the anger…my fucking
mind
, it’s not…I can’t take this! And here he is! The motherfucker that started it all—”

“I know, Trish,” Lily says while her brother’s black blood seeps through her fingers. “I know. Calm down. Take a breath. Let it go. I should have seen it. It’s not your fault. I should have seen…but I was too wrapped up in my own shit.” Lily turns and looks at her brother. Her eyes flash red. Then she says to Trish, “Don’t think for a second I don’t want this asshole to pay for what he’s done. He
will
pay. But not like this. He wants me to murder him. Fuck if I know why. But we can’t give him what he wants. This is too easy—”
 

I rummage through the bikes until I find a towel, conscious of the Stricken army rapidly approaching. Then I help Lil bandage our packmate.

Vuk winces as we tighten the wrapping across his wound. There’s something in the two of us helping a third packmate that feels…
right
somehow. He’s still family. No matter what he did. Still a packmate, and a part of me is thankful I still have the goodness in my wild spirit to recognize Vuk as one of my own. It means the hatred and anger hasn’t consumed all of me.

Not yet.

But if my little sister dies because of him?

Unlike Lily, I won’t hesitate to take my brother’s head off.

Vuk’s blood, blackened by the Atrocity when he violated my mother, seeps through the bandage almost instantly. The smell fills my nostrils, makes my animal roar with rage and hunger.

“What are we going to do with him?” I ask Lily.

“Yes, alpha sister,” Vuk says, wincing. “What will you do? I’m quite curious as well—”

“First we make sure he doesn’t die on us,” Lily says, her jaw set in determination. “Then we find Lachlan and Shiori and free Pimniq—”

“Our son,” Vuk says, his eyes glowing. “I’m so happy you mentioned him. A fine young lad. Don’t you agree,
mother
?”

Lily’s hands begin trembling.

“Why do you need him to do that?” Trish says. “Shouldn’t we just murder him now and face the others without having to worry about him Becoming?”

“Shiori will kill Pimniq if she senses we harmed Vuk,” I say. “We need to placate her. Perhaps even trade him for her.”

“Trade? Oh, hell no. Then he Becomes?” Trish says, her eyes widening. “Isn’t that what this shit is about? You have to stop the motherfucker from Becoming?”

“He doesn’t have the three he needs,” Lily says, looking right at me. “That’s why he’s here. He has Shiori. Lachlan. But the third?” Lily turns to face Vuk and says, “The third is missing, isn’t he? Rodas? Tezcatlipoca? He refused you—”
 

“You believe you lead as alpha,” Vuk sneers, staring at Lily with a thin smirk. “After all your failures. You still believe.”

“Who leads then?” Lily says, cinching Vuk’s bandage so tight his back arcs in pain. “You?”

“I waited for you. In the middle of the road. I gave myself to you. Think on that, dear sister, when you question who is in control of our Risen pack.”

My chest tightens.

Lily and Vuk stare at one another. He’s still taunting her. Baiting her. Trying to make my sister bend to his will—

Finally Lily says, “Can you walk?”
 

Vuk nods.
 

I pull my Harley from the thorn bush where I laid it down hard and kick her to life. I hate these loud machines. The stink of oil. The rumbling engines. The pollution. Lily commands Vuk to hop on behind me.
 

“You strong enough to hold on?” I ask.

Vuk nods. He’s even paler than he was before Trish shot him. A network of thin blue veins traces through his cheeks and forehead.

“All right. But I gotta warn you. I haven’t ridden much—”

Lily throttles her bike, interrupting me. She leaves a thirty foot long patch of melted rubber and roars down the road, toward whatever is hunting us over those hills—

“We may as well save ourselves the trip and remain here,” Vuk says dryly as we watch Lily and Trish recede into the distance.

“Why?”

“Because when our beloved sister sees what’s rampaging beyond those hills…she’ll turn around and race right back this way.”

It’s only the two of us. I could run with him.

Summon my animal and take him to the Pyramid of the Sun on my own.

Trade him for Pimniq.

“Anik?” Vuk says, very softly. “What’s troubling you?”

“Nothing,” I snarl over my shoulder.

“Is that so? You’re not considering…abandoning your failed alpha? Offering me to Shiori in exchange for Pimniq?”

“No,” I lie.

Vuk chuckles. A pained, wheezing sound escapes his lips. “It’s a good plan. This ruined Skin body…the bullet wound…I won’t live long. All Shiori wants is me. Our sister the All Consuming will reward you.
I
will reward—”

“Shut up,” I growl, maneuvering the bike onto the road.
 

But I don’t leave to chase after Lily.
 

I’m hesitating, idling the bike in the center of the road, unable to decide—

“You hear her,” Vuk says. “You hear Pimniq’s pained screams. Our sister Shiori is beyond heartless in this regard. The longer Pimniq remains at her mercy, the more your little sister suffers.”

He’s right. I do hear Pimniq screaming.
 

In the quiet moments, like now. And in my dreams when I sleep—

“You scent our history in my blood, Anik. I saw your anger. It took much discipline and will to quell the instinct to murder me. When Lily sees what’s marching from over that rise she’ll have no choice but to return to her Pureblood lover and his mangy, rabid animals. Do you think the Pureblood pack will display such…
restraint
…when they scent my blood and realize who I am?”

“Lily won’t let them harm you.”

Vuk laughs. “She couldn’t even prevent a Skin woman from harming me.”

I rev the throttle. The bike snarls and spits.
 

“Take me to the pyramid,” Vuk whispers in my ear. “Free your little sister. Go home. This need not be your battle.”

Something in my brother’s tone, its corruption and treachery, makes me hit the throttle hard and race after Lily.

She’s a shit alpha. That much is clear.

But she’s a good person. Maybe the best I’ve ever known.

She had the opportunity to murder the man she hates most in the world. But she held back. Because her heart told her to. That takes a special kind of courage.
 

I need to give her another chance. Maybe she’s right. Maybe she can end the One War without more killing. And if not? Then we’ll end it the way Vuk desires: with blood and chaos and destruction.

***

“Mother of god,” I mutter as I crest the rise and slow the Harley to a stop beside Lily and Trish.

Vuk’s sharp fingers dig into my shoulders as his muscles tense. “My children,” he whispers in my ear. “My packmates. There’s still time, Anik. Flee to the Pyramid of the Sun. Flee…and live.”

The ground descends in a gentle slope beneath us, the road running laser-straight across the desert. An army straight from hell is marching through the valley, several hundred strong, animals and men and mixes in between, some running at full sprint or gallop, others driving armored Humvees with heavy-calibre machine guns mounted on their roofs.

A rolling dust cloud rises in the Stricken army’s wake.

The formation narrows to a point in front. The advance guard consists of a trio of large, heavily-muscled women with the heads of tigers. The women are dressed in knee-length black leather skirts studded with metal. Each rides a massive elephant with long, wickedly sharp black tusks. The women’s skin is smeared black-red with dried blood. Metal chains strapped to their wrists lead to a harness threaded over the elephant’s heads. The women are seated on leather and steel thrones. A half-dozen poles rise from the backrest of each throne, swaying with the motion of the elephant’s footsteps. Mounted on the poles are heads, and roosting in the decapitated heads is a flock of blood-red crows with white eyes.
 

My skin tingles. An odd sensation churns in my gut.
 

Fear.
 

The heads are Purebloods murdered during the march from the Pyramid of the Sun. I scent them.

Quick-moving fanged monkeys chatter and screech on the elephant’s backs. Sometimes they leap from one elephant to the next. There’s something parasitic about them; there must be dozens of them, and I imagine the rabid monkeys jumping from the elephant’s backs and onto their enemies, latching onto shoulders, piercing necks with poisoned fangs—

The lead elephant sways its giant head from side to side. Paws at the pavement, tearing it up. Then it looks to the hill we’re on and looses a trumpet-call that echoes in my ribcage.

“It can’t see us,” Trish says, sounding uncertain. “We’re too far away. Hidden behind the rise in the road.”

“The Three Sisters tracked your Pureblood pack across the continent,” Vuk whispers. “They have an unerring nose for red blood. They’re on the hunt. They know they’re drawing near.”
 

“Three Sisters?” Lily asks, her voice miles off.

“My firstborn children,” Vuk says with the pride of any father. “Vora. Vita. Valina. The Ravishes. The genealogy is rather convoluted…but since our mother birthed them, Lily…I believe that makes the Ravishes your half-sisters?”

“Minions,” I mutter.
 

“The oldest and purest of Stricken blood,” Vuk says. “I’m surprised you don’t remember them, Anik. The Sisters came as close as anyone ever has to destroying Tornarsuk the Indestructible.”

Giant striped tigers snarling and spitting, leaping onto my back, opening my flesh with their paws, clamping their teeth around my neck—

“I remember,” I say, my voice dull. “They dropped from the trees. Ambushed my animal spirit.”

Vuk nods. “They’ve waited millennia for a rematch.” His fingers tighten on the back of my neck. “We all have.”