The All Consuming: A Shifter MC Novel (Pureblood Predator MC Book 4) (26 page)

Aaron hits the brakes hard, leans the bike into an arcing skid, showers me and Vuk with sand and rocks and kicks up a huge dust cloud. My animal spirit rages at me, scenting Aaron’s wrath.
 

I step in front of Vuk.

The fucker’s moaning something. Some vile poison or taunt or barb.

Thankfully I gagged him.
 

Aaron leaps off the bike, Lily hot behind him. His crew form a ring around me and Vuk. Then the wolf alpha is right in my face, glaring at me, his eyes as cold as glacier ice calving into the arctic sea.
 

“Step aside, Anik,” Aaron snarls.

“I need him alive.”

“Step aside.”

A rumbling growl escapes my lips. Lily hooks her arm around Aaron’s elbow, gently restraining him. Vuk’s muffled laughter rises behind me.
 

“Shiori has Pimniq,” Lily says in Aaron’s ear. “Remember that. She has Pim. I chose to spare the Fallen. Me! He’s
my
brother—”

Aaron’s eyes never leave mine. I feel him…working into me. His will. Pushing me outside myself. Fear tickles down the back of my neck. I’ve never felt such power. Not from my animal. Not even from Lily’s. I try and summon the bear, drop my claws, more to make sure—

Nothing. A pit of emptiness. He’s gone.

Aaron’s gaze knifes into me.
 

“You feel that?” he says, real quiet.

“What have you done?”

“Step aside. Your animal’s fled. He’s smarter than you.”

I’m suddenly furious. I want to bleed him dry. Smash him down. Cut him in half—

“We both know that’s not going to happen, Anik.”

Aaron’s voice is confident. Commanding.
 

I don’t know if he’s in my mind or simply reading the look in my eyes. I glance at my trembling hands. My human hands—

Lily glances at me, then at Aaron, then back at me. Her mouth drops open. It’s the first time she’s seen this power. She didn’t know Aaron is capable of banishing animal spirits when it suits him, and now she’s wondering, does her bloodmate have the power to banish her animal as well? To transform her into a Skin?

“How long?” Lily stammers.

Aaron finally breaks the stare he’s had locked on me since I stepped in front of him. “As long as I say.”

“Jesus shit,” Lily breathes.
 

I have no choice. He’ll rip out my heart if I stand in his way. He’s ruthless. A wildborn apex predator at his peak of power—

Slowly, without taking my eyes off Aaron, I yield.
 

Five feet of space separates Aaron from Vuk. The air crackles with murderous energy. I feel the fight going on inside the wolf. The instinct to kill an ancient enemy barely held in check. How long has Aaron dreamed of this moment? Yearned for it?

Vuk and Aaron lock eyes.
 

Vuk’s feverish, half-dead, but his eyes suddenly narrow, glow inky black.
 

Aaron leans forward a fraction. Scents the air. Flings his head to the cloudless sky and screams. Not howls. Screams. “Aargh!” he shrieks, reaching up to tear at his hair. “Aargh! You fuck. You weak, twisted, pathetic
fuck
.”

Lily springs forward, stepping between her brother and her bloodmate. “He’s a Skin, Aaron. He needs the Risen to Become. He’s not worth it—”

“Aargh!”

Aaron bends over, picks up a huge stone, hurls it through the air, then looks at Vuk and raises his hand. His fingers end in razor-sharp claws. “Get up. Stand up, you motherfucker. Now!”

Vuk flashes that vicious thin-lipped smile. Struggles to get his feet under him. Leans against the bike, nearly topples over, then slowly rises. A wracking cough tears through his chest, nearly knocking him back into the dirt. Lily quickly removes Vuk’s gag so he doesn’t choke. When the cough finally subsides Vuk spits a mouthful of blood, turns to Aaron and says, “There’s no victory in murdering a half dead man.”

“You’re no man,” Aaron says, his face registering uncertainty, as if he hasn’t accepted it’s really Vuk.
 

The two men stand, silently facing one another over Lily’s head.
 

“Dog,” Vuk whispers. “Fetch me a drink of water. I’m parched.”

“
You
,” Aaron says, his voice a lethal whisper. “It’s really you.”
 

“Me. Well. Not the better half of me, as you know. But yes. Why the long face, Aaron? I thought you’d be pleased to see me so weakened. At your
mercy
.”

Aaron bristles at the word. He seems to swell up, until he towers over Vuk. The veneer of calculated cruelty on Vuk’s face slips when he glimpses Aaron’s strength.
 

“Such a shame,” Vuk whispers. “I know how much you were looking forward to besting my animal in a blood challenge—”

“Aaron, please,” Lily warns.

Faster than my eye can follow Aaron reaches out and snatches Vuk by the throat. Lifts him inches off the ground, then slowly brings him toward his snarling half-formed wolf face. Vuk’s sputtering, his legs shuddering and kicking, the veins in his neck and forehead swollen by the force of Aaron’s grip—

Vuk was right. Aaron’s going to strangle him to death. A few cheers and hoots rise from the gathered Purebloods. I thought I could keep Aaron off Vuk. I underestimated the wolf’s growing strength—

“Let him go, Aaron,” Lily screams. “He has Pimniq! Please. It was my fault she’s lost. I couldn’t control Shiori…I failed Anik…please let my brother go. I couldn’t live with myself…if anything happened to Pim.”
 

Something in Lily’s voice seems to slow Aaron.

Vuk’s black eyes flicker between Aaron’s snarling maw and Lily.

Aaron’s claws sink into Vuk’s neck.

Vuk winces. Licks his cracked and bloody lips.

Aaron lifts his ancient wildborn enemy over his head. Glares at him, his eyes bright with fury and kill-lust. I can almost see the battle raging in Aaron’s mind between his need to protect his bloodmate from further harm and the need to murder his rival—

In a single swift motion Aaron releases his hand from Vuk’s throat. Vuk collapses in a heap at Aaron’s feet and immediately begins gasping and sputtering. Aaron stares out over his Pureblood crew. “This one’s death is mine and mine alone. Until that time, he’s under my protection. Any of you touch him, you answer to me.”

A heavy sigh of relief escapes my lips.

“Turn him,” Lily says to Aaron.

“What?” I say.

Lily ignores me and continues staring at Aaron, her lips clamped tight. “Turn the Fallen, Aaron. Make his blood run red.”

Aaron looks at his hands, then at Vuk.

Vuk shrinks away. Shakes his head. Moans no over and over—

Aaron’s eyes blaze. “Fucking turn the sick bastard?” he says, more to himself than anyone listening. “End it right now? Without killing?”

“Yes,” Lily says. “For your bloodmate.”

Vuk scoots backward and presses against the Harley, trying to get as far away as from Aaron as possible.

“Yo. Uh, Prez?” It’s Nash. “Is this something we need to, you know, think through?”

“Nah. Over-thinking doesn’t help shit.” Aaron gestures at Nash. “Bring him to me. Hold him. If he makes a move, kill him.”

“With pleasure,” Nash says, jumping to haul Vuk out from beneath the Harley.

“The One We Answer To,” Vuk whispers.
 

“Piss off.”

“Lily?” I ask. “What’s going on?”

“Watch.”

Nash lifts Vuk to his feet, pins his arms behind his back and moves him so he’s right in front of Aaron. Vuk cringes as Aaron reaches out and places his hand over my brother’s heart. Aaron closes his eyes and summons his wolf. His skin ripples and his jaw widens and his claws and fangs drop. Then something strange happens. There’s a feeling like a room being sucked dry of air. Aaron’s skin lifts and pulses down his arm. He’s radiating an energy I can’t explain, other than to say it shimmers and pulses like the northern aurora borealis. The energy flows into Vuk’s chest—

Aaron’s eyes shoot open.

A pained moan escapes his lips, followed by a choking gurgle.

“Something’s wrong!” Lily screams.

Vuk’s silent, his face blank. He’s staring at Aaron, his eyes oddly angular, like an insect’s.

Aaron begins shuddering.

“Nash get him the fuck off something’s wrong—” Lily leaps forward, tries to tear Aaron’s hand from Vuk’s chest.

It won’t budge.

Aaron’s hand is turning black.

Nash wrenches Vuk backward, lifting him off his feet. Aaron collapses forward, his hand still stuck fast to Vuk’s chest. The blackness traces up the thick veins in Aaron’s forearm.

“Get him off!” Lily screams. “He’s fucking
turning
him!”

The pained, gurgling sound Aaron’s making is getting louder. His eyes are wide open, unseeing. His skin’s rippling—

“No,” Vuk whispers. “Not like this. However much you deserve it. I accept your blood challenge, Aaron Arud. I accept, and now…I release you.”

Lily tears Aaron’s hand from Vuk’s chest. A tremendous blast of air sends sand stinging into my eyes, and when I look up Nash has Vuk on the ground, his knee pressed hard on Vuk’s solar plexus, his hyena spitting and snarling for the kill.

I race at Nash, intent on knocking him off Vuk even without Tornarsuk, afraid the wild hyena’s going to murder my brother and doom Pimniq. Blue, the Kodiac bear, steps in front of me, followed quickly by Mia.

“Mia?” I gasp, my heart wrenching.

“Sorry handsome. Good times were had. This is pack business.”

Nash sees me, sees his packmates blocking my path, and eases up on Vuk. “Prez said not to kill him,” Nash says. “Means I ain’t killing him.”

I raise my hands and back away.

Aaron’s leaning into Lily. His breath is ragged.
 

He looks like he’s aged a decade.

“You should have known,” I say to Lily. “He pretended to be afraid to draw his mark. He’s the First Fallen. The One Without Value. Even without his animal, his blood corrupts.”

Aaron whirls at me and says, “You step to me like that again, I’ll send the bear away permanently. You got me Anik? I don’t give a fuck who’s brother you are.”

I watch Vuk’s smile spread across his face. He lives for this. Preys on chaos and instability, hurt and unhappiness.

“You got me, Anik?” Aaron repeats.

“Yeah. I got you.”
 

Suddenly my animal spirit is in me again. Lurking. Prowling. Aaron didn’t say a word. Just…commanded. Me. A Risen animal. Aaron pushes away from Lily, spins on a heel and motions for his crew to follow, leaving me and Trish and Lily to guard Vuk.

Before we can stop him Vuk yells, “Remember, Aaron of the Mountain River, how my blood burns. Remember I
chose
to spare you.”

***

“This is your brother’s doing,” Mia says as we survey the hundreds of miles of burned, blasted land surrounding the Pyramid of the Sun.
 

The pyramid itself is visible in the far distance, its peaked summit rising above low-hanging yellow-grey smoke. My hackles rise when I see the pyramid and the hundreds of miles of wasteland surrounding it.
 

“He’s a corruption of natural law,” Mia continues. “A sickness. The firestorms, the earthquakes, the senseless destruction and death. Even the fucking Blood Moon. All unnatural. All because of his twisted will.”

“He wasn’t always like this,” I say quietly. “He was a child once. A pup. I remember roaming with him.”

It’s true. The longer I spend united with Vuk and Lily, the more of my wildborn history returns. I’m beginning to have a better idea of who I am. The role I play in the Risen pack.

I can’t see the future.
 

But I’m beginning to understand why I’m here. My purpose—
 

At my mention of roaming with Vuk, Mia shoots me a sharp look.
 

Exhaustion’s gathering in her brow, in the tightness in her eyes. We’ve been on the road for three full days and two nights. Stopping only to siphon fuel for our bikes. We’ve been attacked four times by Stricken patrols. Lost six Purebloods in the ambushes. The cost of riding without scouting, Aaron said. He’s been setting a relentless pace. Dropping those who can’t keep up and shrugging it off as natural selection.
 

He seems tireless. But I know better.
 

He’s gunning for the biggest trophy kill of his life.

My older brother.
 

Now Mia’s straddling her Harley, her black leather riding outfit and MC cut grey with road dust and splotched with oil and bloodstains, and for a minute my heart quickens, remembering the time we spent alone together in the sandstone canyons—

The closeness between Mia and me is over.

I see it every time I look in her eyes. The hardness and distance.

It saddens me. Not because it was unexpected. I knew what Mia and I shared would be short-lived. But it saddens me because, looking into her eyes now, I wonder if anything she said she felt was real. Or did she make it up, simply to harm her true unrequited love, Aaron Arud?

Did the snake woman use me?

This southern land where no one speaks what they mean. Where every action has a hidden motive. Anger rises in my throat, and I remind myself of the goal: rescue my sister. Flee to our northern home. Let the rest fight their endless One War—
 

“That was a fuck of a long time ago,” Mia says, flicking a cool glance behind her to where Vuk is strapped to the back of Lily’s bike. “The past doesn’t count for shit. Only this moment matters.”

She’s wrong. But I keep my mouth closed. Mia’s not as hard as she makes herself out to be. I’ve seen the other side of her. But she needs to believe she’s hard, simply to have the strength to go on living. Self-delusion. Another curse of this land—

Lily rides up beside me. We haven’t spoken much. I’ve been keeping to myself. A black cloud’s been hanging over the MC since Aaron nearly died trying to turn Vuk. My presence only reminds Aaron and the rest of the MC that Lily’s a Risen. Lily looks as tired as Mia, maybe more. She doesn’t have Mia’s tough-as-nails exterior. Everything she feels is right there on her face.