Wolf Hunt (Book 2) (24 page)

"Robyn killed her," said Ally.

Shane slapped her across the face.

"That's right. She did. And it was George's fault, not Robyn's."

"No, it was Robyn's fault."

Shane slapped her again.

"Honey, your trigger is either fear, anger, or pain. I'm happy to keep trying all three until we get somewhere."

"Maybe her trigger is you not being an asshole," said George. "I guess she'll never be able to change."

"Funny, George. It's all a bunch of great big laughs until somebody bleeds out. Wanna say something else?"

"No, I was just waiting for the chance to use the asshole comment."

"Here's one you can use: 'No, little girl! Please stop hurting me! I don't want to die!'"

"Nah. I'll think of something better than that."

Shane changed his arm and raked three talons across George's leg. George cried out in pain.

"Did you think of something better yet?" Shane asked.

"If you're going to kill me, then kill me," said George. "Don't just stand around jerking off in front of your daughter."

"I'll excuse you for not paying attention to the conversation Ally and I have been having, since you're gushing blood and probably not thinking clearly."

"It's not gushing. It's just leaking a lot."

"Either way, I'm not going to kill you. Ally is. Hopefully she's going to kill you as a wolf, but if not, she's going to kill you as a human."

"What are you talking about?" Ally demanded.

"I'm talking about bloodlust. I guarantee that if you rip his throat out with your bare teeth, that'll spark the change. That wasn't the way I wanted to do it, but clearly you're not making any effort on your part, so as your father I'm going to have to just throw you in the deep end of the pool."

Shane grabbed his daughter by the back of the neck and pulled her down with him as he crouched next to George. "Time to eat."

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Red Robyn

Bullet to the back of the head.

Cement shoes on his feet before he was dumped in a lake.

Stroke. (There was a family history.)

These were but three of the many, many ways George would put on his list of ways he thought he would die that were more likely than a werewolf forcing his human teenaged daughter to bite out his throat. In fact, if he'd been locked in a room for a week with nothing but a typewriter and instructions to come up with every possible method of his demise, he wasn't sure he'd ever arrive at that one.

There were worse ways to go, for sure, but this was pretty goddamn deranged.

He'd originally been hiding what little bit of strength he had left for the most opportune moment to strike. Now, after lying in the snow and bleeding, that strength was all but gone. He would not be suddenly springing to life and overpowering Shane.

He was basically finished.

It was a sad way to go, and maybe he'd be struck with a renewal of energy sometime before Ally's teeth reached his throat, but for now his biggest hope was that Ally would indeed transform into a werewolf in the next few seconds, so that she could finish him off with one big bite to the neck instead of what were sure to be lots of small, hesitant bites. Because that would really suck.

* * *

"What the fuck is the matter with you?" asked Ally. "I'm not going to bite his neck! Stop it, Dad! Stop it!"

"Quit struggling."

"No! You can't make me do this! You're insane! You're completely insane!"

"I'm your father, and you
will
respect me!"

"I have no respect for you! I hate you!"

Shane twisted the little brat's hair in his fist. "I said, do it!"

"Help!" Ally screamed. "Help me! Somebody!"

"Shhh!"

"Help me!"

"Shut up!"

"Help me!"

Shane wanted to break her spoiled brat neck. Rotten kids had such a sense of entitlement these days. They didn't think they had to do anything their parents told them.

He yanked on her hair until she cried out. "You wanna call for help again? Do it. See if I don't rip your hair out at the roots. You can be a werewolf with a great big bald patch on your head. I don't care. Do it. Call for help. Do it."

"Please, Daddy, just let me go..." "

"You think that calling me Daddy is going to change anything? How stupid do you think I am? Don't try to play your own father. Bite his neck, now, or I'll kill him and then we'll continue this in the car. You don't want that. I promise you, Ally, you don't want that."

"Okay," said Ally. "Okay. I'll do it."

* * *

Ally opened her mouth wide, and George had his renewal of energy. Well, maybe not energy. Just a renewal of his desire not to have his throat ripped out. He tried to sit up, but his body wouldn't cooperate.

George tried to return to his earlier state of acceptance, but, nope, he couldn't summon it. He was just going to have to die in a state of unrestrained terror, damn it.

* * *

What on earth is Shane doing over there
? Robyn wondered.

Never mind. She didn't want to know.

* * *

Ally's transformation was not physical. But suddenly it was as if a wild, rabid, crazed beast had been let out of a crate. And her entire animalistic outburst was aimed at Shane.

The girl just went
berserk
.

Screaming. Thrashing. Kicking. Slashing with her fingernails. George was very thankful not to be on the receiving end.

Could you change into a werewolf without actually changing? Had she suddenly gone feral on the inside? Or had she just had enough of her father's bullshit?

* * *

"What the hell, Ally?" Shane tried to keep her under control, but she'd gone absolutely insane. He could barely hold her.

If he transformed, he'd be able to hold her down, no problem, but Shane wasn't one hundred percent certain that he could stop himself from hurting her in his wolf state. He didn't mind hurting her a little, or even a lot, but as a wolf he might do permanent damage, or even kill her.

Killing her would not be okay.

"You need to knock this off right now," he told her, as she went for his eyes. "I mean it!"

He was actually becoming a little flustered.

* * *

Oh, for God's sake...

Robyn got out of the car. This was exactly why she'd wanted to just leave town as soon as they got Ally. When she let the boys do what they wanted, things spiraled out of control.

* * *

Running hurt, but Eugene ran anyway.

George was lying on his back in the snow while Shane struggled with the Tasmanian Devil that Ally had become. Robyn had gotten out of the car to help. So Eugene's best way to help would be to tackle Robyn.

She heard him before he reached her. The sight of a man in a winter coat and boxer shorts would probably be a strange one even without everything else that was weird about him, and it took her a second to process.

Unfortunately, Eugene was several seconds away from her, so she was more than ready by the time he reached her. He didn't care. Wolf-woman or not, he was going to tackle her and fight to the death.

He even let out a battle cry. Screw it, he had nothing to lose.

Eugene was ready for her to take a vicious swing at him, so he lowered his head right before impact.

He successfully ducked out of the way of her swing, which he figured was his one moment of good luck for this conflict. As he slammed into her werewolf chest, the snout that had been sewn onto his face popped almost all of its stitches at once. It flopped over and dangled by only one or two threads.

Robyn swiped at him. He put up his paw to block her. This time, all of the stitches broke, and the paw popped right off, falling into the snow next to his bare feet. There wasn't a fountain of blood, but there was definitely some blood.

Eugene hadn't been given the opportunity to look into the crater that used to be his nose after Mr. Dewey had it removed but before he'd sewn on the replacement. He wondered if he'd be alive long enough to recoil at the sight of himself in the mirror.

He thrust his other hand at Robyn's face.

Four of the five fingernails broke completely off as soon as they struck fur. They weren't his real nails, but they'd been on his hand for at least a couple of weeks, and they were well-stuck to the skin. So the pain of having four fingernails come off at once was, without question, the worst physical agony he'd ever endured. It felt every bit as bad as he might have imagined it would feel to have all four nails ripped off at once, plus a little worse. He'd never had anything positive to say about Mr. Dewey, but at least he'd drugged Eugene before removing his real nails.

The fifth nail, the nail on his ring finger, plunged deep into Robyn's eyeball.

She did not react calmly to this.

* * *

The howl of pain from Robyn sent a genuine, literal shiver down George's spine. As in, his spine actually trembled from the sound that she made when, as George saw when he looked over, Eugene stabbed one of his long-ass fingernails into her eye.

Shane and Ally both turned to see what had just happened. Eugene pulled his hand away, and the fingernail snapped off. Eugene stepped back, blood dripping from his fingertips, while Robyn clutched at her eye and continued her wolfish shriek. The sound was so ghastly that, though it didn't make George feel sorry for her, it did make him wince at her plight. You never wanted to get a fingernail through your eyeball. Never.

* * *

Eugene knew that this was the moment to deliver his finishing blow, but he didn't really
have
a finishing blow. He was an emaciated, probably frostbitten, mangled mess whose only real offensive capability was the five fingernails that were now broken off.

Well, and the teeth that were stuck to his shoulders and jaw. Maybe he'd use the teeth.

He lunged at her, trying to get Robyn in a bear hug. She smacked him, but with the back of her hand instead of the claws, probably not intentionally, and he hit the ground.

Robyn wrenched the nail out of her eye.

Eugene looked up at her and tried to make peace with his death. It had been a fine life if you disregarded the past few weeks, and if this was how he went out, well, now George would be facing a one-eyed instead of two-eyed werewolf, and his odds of survival were that much greater.

* * *

George felt that it probably said something unpleasant about him that he couldn't work up the strength to move when Ally was being forced into attempted cannibalism by her father, but seeing Robyn with her eyeball spurting just brought him right back to life.

He sat up, hurting his back in the process, and somehow managed to wrap his arms around Shane's neck. Shane immediately transformed and stood up, but George maintained his hold, standing up along with the wolfman, hugging him from behind.

Ally punched him in the stomach.

Shane tried to shake George off of him, but Ally punched him again, and their combined efforts were just enough to keep Shane from...

Nope, Shane backhanded Ally just like Robyn had backhanded Eugene, and she hit the ground. George, however, tried to squeeze even tighter. He'd strangle the son of a bitch. As long as Shane didn't know any wrestling moves that involved throwing your opponent off your back, George was not going to let go, no matter what.

Ally got back up and lunged at him. George couldn't quite see what she did, but it looked a hell of a lot like she'd grabbed a fistful of fur on his chest and yanked it, hard.

George tightened his hug even more.
Break, you stupid neck, break.
He tried to jam his knee into Shane's back, but he just got him in the ass, which the weirdo probably enjoyed.

Shane was thrashing around too much. Despite what he'd promised himself just moments ago, George wasn't going to be able to continue to hold on to him. If it were daylight, he would have told Ally to limp into the woods, find the bat, and bring it back to beat the shit out of her father, but since it was dark he was pretty sure this fight would be over before she returned.

Shane twisted around and George lost his grip, falling to the ground for what he was pretty sure was the hundred and fifty-eighth time that day.

Ally, undeterred, grabbed another fistful of Shane's fur.

They were losing anyway, so George wasn't happy to see that Robyn was headed toward them.

* * *

Eugene had to admit that he was happy when Robyn apparently decided that helping her boyfriend (husband? brother?) was more important than killing him. There was no part of his body that didn't hurt right now, but he could push through that.

Because Robyn clearly was not carrying anything, so the keys had to be in the car.

* * *

Robyn scooped Ally up in her arms. She wanted to crush the girl, fold her in half until she squirted from the sides like a jelly sandwich, but, no. Shane would be devastated if he lost his daughter, and quite honestly Shane was so far gone right now that he'd do something he'd regret.

Even with a horrific eye injury, she got stuck being the responsible one.

She hated her life.

But loved the sex.

* * *

With Ally out of the way, Shane could devote his full attention to George. He was over the idea that George should suffer a long, drawn-out death. Shane might seem to be a monster, but he really wasn't, and the sight of his beloved Robyn with blood streaming down her face was worse than a silver bullet to his heart. He'd finish off George, get Robyn and Ally back to the car, and then they'd get her patched up. She'd be fine. She had to be fine.

* * *

It hurt like hell for Eugene to use his raw, bloody fingers to turn the key in the ignition, but he did it.

The car engine roared to life.

He wasn't going to be able to control the steering wheel very well, but he could accelerate and brake just fine, even if he couldn't really feel his feet anymore.