The All Consuming: A Shifter MC Novel (Pureblood Predator MC Book 4) (28 page)

Her eyes harden. Then she leans forward and kisses me, a long, tender kiss that makes me kind of sad for a reason I can’t explain, and when our lips part she smiles and says, “After you, Mr. One-Eight-Seven.”

I give Lily a wide grin, then loose a roar, boot my Harley to life and turn toward the stinking valley and the asshole Vuk’s shitty lair. The Pyramid of the Sun. What a bunch of self-aggrandizing bullshit. Vuk’s just another fascist wannabe with self-esteem issues.
 

I’m fucking trembling with the need to tear out his heart.

But as Lily and Anik fall in behind me a frown flickers across my face.

There’s something I’m not telling my bloodmate.

A change of plans I
know
she’s not gunna like—

***

First blip in the plan comes when we’re about a mile away from the pyramid, close enough to see the moat filled with blood and the steps glistening red-black and the mountain of beheaded corpses piled at the base. Up on the pyramid’s platform there’s a weird wooden pole altar-thing like the one that burned me alive in the mental hospital. I look back and scowl at Vuk. The bony little bastard. He gives me a narrow, hooked smirk that makes my claws drop—

Next to finding my bloodmate, killing him might be the high point of my life.

I’m riding out front, picking my way through the rubble and corpse-strewn city streets. It’s slow going. Most of the buildings have been burned to the ground. Their gutted husks are still smoldering. It’s deadly quiet.

I keep expecting a Stricken army to roar down on us.

But there’s nothing.

The hair on my neck sands on end. I glance up, through drifting yellow haze. The vultures are with us.
 

We’re being escorted to Vuk’s lair.

Every nerve in my body’s on fire. All my senses are focused razor-sharp. I scent the destroyed city, the chaos and suffering. Cataclysms happen. They’re natural. Asteroids strike the earth. Volcanoes erupt. But this…slaughter? No. There’s nothing natural about. This is forced extinction. Genocide.

I dodge around a lime green Volkswagen bug. One of Mexico’s City’s famous taxis. Most of the cars we pass are burned out and wrecked, but this one is oddly pristine. Still shiny from when the owner waxed it. I see my face reflected in the metal as I roll by. My wolf’s half out, my brow thick and my mouth stretched wide and long to make room for my fangs and my hair bunched up all wild on my head. The turquoise amulet the skinwalker gave me catches the light and shines on my chest. I got a Glock tucked into my belt, more out of habit than any real hope it’ll do any good—

I pass the Volkswagen and cast a wary glance over my shoulder. Vuk’s sitting up straight on Lily’s bike. He looks…larger somehow. His movements faster. He’s getting stronger the closer we get to the pyramid.
 

Good. It’s no fun crushing bugs under my heel.
 

I want a fair fight.
 

I need the fucker’s ugly mantis head mounted on a pole when I ride back to my crew. The end of the One War. That will solidify my territorial claim and cement me as the Age of Discord’s unrivaled apex alpha—

Something’s not right. I scent the air. Yeah. Something’s off.
 

I slow the bike even more, then wave Lily up at my side. I want her close. I want Vuk close. Anik’s been commanded to guard the rear. Trish is sitting behind him, one arm wrapped around Anik’s waist and the other cradling an AK. She looks mean as hell. Hardened. Damn. Respect for the Skin girl. She’s made it this far—

A heavy black cloud of smoke swirls up from a sewer grate. At first I think it’s just something burning, but then the smoke runs sideways along the street, straight at us, in a way that no natural smoke ever could. A rumbling growl bursts from my lips.
 

“Tezcatlipoca,” Vuk whispers in a way that’s filled with hatred and fear.
 

“Your most loyal servant,” Lily says dryly.

“Not in this age,” Vuk corrects. “He betrayed me.”
 

“You must be terribly disappointed.”

“More than you can imagine,
sister
.”

The smoke narrows to a fine point, then slowly rises from the ground, becoming a spear suspended at the level of my throat. I roll the Harley to a stop. The spear doesn’t move. It’s about ten yards away.

“Nice fucking trick,” I say, not knowing if whatever’s making the smoke can hear me. “So now that we’re all impressed and shit, why don’t you come out and say yo?”

“He wants me dead,” Vuk says.

“No shit? That’s a shame. Too bad I’m first in line.”
 

“Aaron…” Lily warns.

I give my bloodmate a conciliatory wave. I’m thinking about summoning the shadow-wolves. You know. Parlor trick against parlor trick.
 

Suddenly the spear shoots forward, so fast it makes a hissing sound as it slices through the air. A few weeks ago it might have got me. But now? I’m too fast for the motherfucker. I duck to the side and the smoke-spear hurls by, bringing a rush of cold air with it.
 

I have a split second to pat myself on the back for dodging the fucker when I realize he isn’t aiming for me.

He’s aiming for Vuk.
 

The smoke-spear shoots past me toward Lily and Vuk. Lily screams, unleashing a wave of shimmering heat that slams into the spear, and suddenly there’s a
man
hurting through space…or not a man exactly. He has his animal out, a massive spotted leopard. His skin’s covered in spots. War paint? No. Tattoos. His head’s shaved. He’s wearing only a loincloth. And now he’s roaring through the air straight at
my
bloodmate and
my
kill—

All right. So it’s on.

***

The spotted dude screams as Lily’s heat washes over him, but he’s still leaping through the air, his mouth open to reveal row after row of wicked feline fangs, his arms held out straight in front of him, his claws shining—

I send two of my three shadow-wolves to take the guy out. They materialize at Lily’s feet and leap into the air, blocking the fucker’s pounce. The leopard dude collides with the wolves and looses a loud grunt, then spins through the air over Lily and Vuk and lands on the pavement right in front of Anik and Trish. One of my wolves gets a nip of him and I taste his red Risen blood and then I see his animal prowling through dappled jungle sunlight, the Spotted Stalker, the one who remained loyal to Vuk after the Atrocity.

Seems he’s had a change of heart.

The leopard leaps to his feet.
 

Stares at Anik. Blinks. Trish levels the AK. Anik’s shoulders swell and bulge, which is very bad news—
 

Something hisses past my head. Are there two of the fuckers?

I catch movement from the corner of my eye and instinctively swipe a paw out. A metal-tipped spear clatters to the pavement.

I scent them now. A sewer-stink so strong my nose wrinkles.

“Skins?” I say, still not certain.

“
La Mugre
,” a cool female voice says from real close. Damn. I whirl just in time to see a tall, lean-muscled Latino woman with a shaved head and a necklace of animal teeth hurl a spear at my chest.

The spear might as well be moving through mud. I step easily to the side, the throttle the Harley and plough through the Skin woman, knocking her ass over teakettle. Then I crank the bike in a tight u-turn and gun for the Spotted Stalker. He hears the Harley’s roar and turns to face me, and in that moment Anik looses some of his bear and swipes the spotted fucker in the side, sending him slamming to the pavement.

Fucking hell. I close my eyes and will Tornarsuk away.
 

Anik screams in rage when he feels his animal being banished—
 

More spears arc through the air and then I see them, hundreds strong, an army of weirdo skins, all with shaved heads, their bodies strangely long, their eyes too large in their heads, their faces pierced with metal rings and rods—

A shadow swoops overhead.
 

“Down!” I shriek at Lily.
 

The horned vulture screeches as it buzzes only a few feet from my head. Collides with Vuk. Lifts him off the seat—

Fuck sakes.
 

The best laid plans.
 

I’m off the Harley in a heartbeat, sprinting the ten or so yards toward where the vulture’s about to pluck my prey from my grasp. The bird’s in the air now, his red eyes glowing in triumph, his massive wings flapping furiously to gain loft. I pounce on the back of Lily’s Harley and leap into the sky.
 

Ten feet. Twenty. Real close now.
 

I let out a booming roar. Vuk’s laughing like a maniac. The vulture swivels its hideous head down in my direction. Its eyes widen as I clamp my claws through its black feathers, loosing a cloud of choking dust that swirls into my nostrils and scents of ancient graves and dusty sarcophagi. The bird squawks and swerves hard to the right, narrowly misses slamming into the burned-out husk of a building. Someone’s screaming below but I can’t look. It’s taking all my will just to bring the bird down—

I snap my jaws around the vulture’s wing. It shrieks in pain as its brittle, hollow bones shatter and then me, Vuk and the bird are spinning out of control toward the ground.

We land in a twisted heap. The bird’s bulk crushes into me, tearing the breath from my lungs and then he’s raking at me with his talons, trying to gut me. Vuk’s managed to free himself from the tangle.
 

Motherfucker’s making a run for it.

The black smoke races after my ancient enemy, and I know if it reaches Vuk before me I’ll be robbed of my prize kill.
 

Lily screams something like
Don’t you fucking hurt my son
and as the vulture’s talons slip into my thigh I’m
really
beginning to regret that promise. I manage to punch the bird hard enough in the head to daze him, then I’m free, running after Vuk and the black smoke, summoning my animal as I run.
 

Two Harleys roar to life behind me.

I pile into Vuk just as the black smoke reaches him. Drag him to the ground. Cover him with my body. He’s still laughing, loving having me caught in the middle of his fucked-up family reunion. Something ice cold pierces my back. My wolf howls as the smoke-spear drills deeper, seeking my heart. I reach back and tear the spear from me. For a second my paw burns from the cold, then the smoke dissipates and I’m left swatting at air.

“I will have my brother’s blood.”

The Spotted Stalker. Rodas.

He’s crouched in the shadows behind an overturned delivery truck. His eyes are swirling pools of bright yellow and black, like the rosettes covering his skin.
 

“Get in line, kitty,” I snarl.
 

Lily races between us and hops off her bike.
 

Her skin’s glowing red-white.
 

“Sister,” the leopard says, sneering.

“Leave him be, Rodas,” Lily says, her she-wolf emerging as she speaks. “Our brother is needed.”

Hundreds of Skin warriors slink from the shadows. Still more emerge from the sewers. The girl I knocked flat is walking down the street toward us, her spear held high, the warriors falling in line behind her.

“Back the fuck off!” Trish shouts, resting the AK on Anik’s shoulder to aim.
 

The warriors keep advancing.

I don’t give them much thought. Weak-assed Skins.
 

But Rodas? He’s a problem.
 

I lock gazes with Rodas and send my wolfmind out hunting. He scents the leopard. Moves into Rodas’ mind. A swirling mix of hatred and revenge-lust. My wolf snarls at the leopard, commanding him away.

Rodas’ glowing eyes dim. A strangled sound bursts from his lips, then he leaps behind the truck and vanishes into black smoke. The Skin warriors look at one another uncertainly.

“Seems our brother has grown rather attached this animal,” Vuk says to Lily. “Can’t say I blame him.”

I’m about to command Lily to take Vuk when the sky darkens with a vast cloud of screeching vultures. The boy. Lachlan.
 

Pesky little bastard.

“We need to get my brother to the pyramid. Now!” Lily says, eyeing the storm of winged death hurrying toward us.

The vultures pause over the pyramid and begin circling. A giant tornado of death, moving so quickly it brings a freezing wind down to street level. The ground frosts over. The chill seeps into my bones, so cold I feel it weakening me. The boy is strong.

Maybe too strong.

I snarl at the thought. Doubt is death.

“My
son
,” Vuk whispers with fatherly pride.

Lily leaps at her brother, lands inches from his face. Her wolf is straining to break free. She leans into Vuk’s face and roars. Vuk’s pale face loses even more color. I scent my bloodmate’s fury. It’s taking every ounce of willpower she has not to slaughter the sick fuck—

The wind carries a pained scream down from the pyramid platform.
 

“Pimniq,” Anik whispers, his face a mask of suffering. His shoulders begin bulking up—

“Send his animal away, Aaron!” Lily shrieks.

Vuk looks at me. Hatred pools in his inky black eyes.

I accept your blood challenge.

“I’m sorry, Lil,” I say. “I’m a predator. Killing is all I am.”

Lily’s face twists in confusion, then hurt, then rage. “You asshole,” she says. “You arrogant, bloodthirsty
liar
. You never planned to banish—”

I loose the last of my hold on Tornarsuk.

Anik springs from his bike and in moments the polar bear appears, so large he casts a shadow over us all. A few of the Skin warriors scatter. Tornarsuk swings his massive head towards Vuk.
 

“This one is mine,” I say.

The bear pauses. Sniffs the air.
 

“It’s what he wanted,” Trish says, hopping off the bike and spinning in a half-circle, searching for something to shoot. “All along. Vuk knew the bear would charge—”