“Shut up, needledick. She did
Aric and a few of the guys chuckled. Giving one another shit was about the only pastime out here, unless you counted paying a visit to one of the whores available in the dirt-poor villages to relieve the tension. The idea made Aric shudder.
They tramped through the thick undergrowth, using the barrels of their weapons to push aside limbs and foliage. Sweat trickled down his spine and between his ass cheeks, and his shirt stuck to his torso. Tuning out his comrades’ continuing banter, he dreamed of home. Of a meal that wasn’t prepackaged and didn’t taste like dog crap. Of pizza and beer.
God, he could taste the dough and cheese, washed down with a cold one—
“Hold up,” Jax whispered, coming to a halt. Tensing, he studied the mountain forest around them, frowning. Somewhere hidden in the greenery, a footstep crunched to their left. Another to their right. And one from behind.
A chill slithered down Aric’s spine as they exchanged glances, readied their weapons. They couldn’t have reached their target’s stronghold already, and this area was supposed to be clear.
Tell that to the bastards who had them surrounded.
Then the forest went silent. Those few heartbeats that followed the utter stillness, those seconds before their lives changed forever, as he locked gazes with Raven, and then Micah, would forever be crystallized in his memory.
The ground trembled and the leaves shook. When a deep-throated roar split the air, Aric jumped, pointing the muzzle of his M-16 into the trees, hands steady, heart racing, a bead of sweat dripping off his nose.
“Fuck,” Micah whispered. “What the fuck is that?”
It was a horror right out of
It looked like a creature that was half man, half wolf. He stared, mouth open, finger frozen on the trigger.
How things might have been salvaged, disaster averted, they’d never know. Because their buddy Jones started screaming, pumping bullets into the beast’s chest. After that, everything went to hell fast.
The creature staggered backward and then rallied quickly, rushing Jones. With a swipe of a paw the size of a dinner plate, the big bastard ripped out Jones’s throat, tossing him aside like a twig. Then it pounced on Raven, biting into the vee of his neck and shoulder as the man screamed.
They opened fire just as several more of the beasts emerged from the forest. It quickly became apparent that while their bullets could wound, it would take something with far more power to kill them. Aric dropped into a crouch and desperately palmed a grenade as his friends fell all around him, waging a battle they couldn’t win. The one who’d killed Jones shook Raven like a rag doll, released him, and ran toward Aric.
He let the grenade fly. It hit at the target’s feet and exploded, sending the damned thing to hell. But it wasn’t enough.
Micah went down, his knife in hand, slitting one’s throat. But another jumped on him, and his struggle was short-lived, his screams echoing in Aric’s ears. Jax fell next, then their CO, Prescott, Ryon, Zan, Nix, and so many others. All of them, one by one. Dead or dying.
Unsheathing his own knife, Aric spun to face the beast coming up on his flank. “Come on, bitch,” he hissed. “Let’s dance.”
Today he would die. But he’d take this one with him.
Surprising the creature, he rushed in and leapt, burying the blade to the handle in its gullet. As it fell, he whirled, heart pounding with fear. Automatically, he thrust out a hand, employing one of the weapons in his personal arsenal that he had sworn never to risk using unless the situation became dire. No reason to keep it a secret now.
Pouring all his consciousness, every ounce of his energy into his gift, he unleashed his fire. A column of flame shot out from his palm and engulfed the wolf-man. Screeching, the beast dropped to the ground, writhing as it burned.
“Take that, cocksucker!”
Filled with renewed hope, he torched three more wolves. He could do this, and save at least some of his teammates. All wasn’t lost.
Until his fire was depleted. Suddenly the flames died and one of the remaining beasts advanced, wearing a sinister expression that could have passed for a grin. He faced it head-on, without flinching, allowing his anger to override the fear that would mean certain death. And if there was any prayer of survival, he’d take it. Moving slowly, he palmed another grenade.
“Come on, you ugly fucker. Come to papa.”
Whether it understood, he couldn’t have said. But it ran at him, and he braced himself. The beast took him to the ground and his back hit hard as he pulled the grenade’s pin. Not a second to lose.
The wolf brought its nose to his, mouth open, breath fetid, fangs dripping with bloody saliva. Seizing his opening, Aric rammed his fist down the beast’s throat, pushing his arm as far as it would go. Immediately, the thing gagged and jerked back reflexively, clawing at his shoulder and arm to dislodge him. Pain burned his biceps and forearm as he was shoved backward, but he ignored it, scrambling as far from the beast as he could.
The grenade detonated, spraying fur, blood, and entrails everywhere. Aric lay there, ears ringing, for several long moments before he realized that all sounds had ceased. He raised his head, saw the prone figures of his team, flung everywhere. Some gasping and moaning for help, others mangled beyond recognition. He tried to crawl toward the pleas, struggled so hard to make it to even one of his fallen brothers.
But he was too fucking weak. His arm burned like it had been dipped in acid, and he peered at it to see several long, deep gashes that had been carved by the wolf-man’s teeth. He was losing blood at an alarming rate, becoming light-headed.
Rest. Just for a minute. Then he’d try again.
The next thing he knew, a hand was shaking his shoulder. “Aric? Oh, God! Please don’t be dead. Please!”
Cracking his eyes open was hard, but he managed. Zan was crouched over him, gripping Aric’s arm—the arm that should’ve had several deep slices. And now it didn’t. The skin was still bloodied, but smooth, as though nothing had happened.
“What the hell?” he rasped.
“Easy,” Zan said. His face was pale as milk, the meat of his shoulder torn open from a nasty bite. “You’re not the only one with a trick up his sleeve, my friend. I’m a Healer.”
Before today, despite his own gift, Aric might’ve laughed. Now he just sent his friend a weak smile. “Thank fuck. So heal yourself while you’re at it.”
“Doesn’t work that way. Stop talking and rest, okay?”
His brain was growing foggy, his body heavy. He had no choice but to obey. Maybe he would die after all, lost in this little slice of hell, along with his friends.
He might have wished for death back then, had he known that he would carry a piece of that devil’s spawn for the rest of his life.
Aric finished his story and reached out, gently wiping Rowan’s tears from her pretty face. “I’m so sorry. I did what I could for your brother and the rest, but it wasn’t enough. It never will be.”
“No, don’t say that,” she protested. “You fought hard, all of you did. And you killed the last one, giving the survivors the chance to be rescued and begin a new life.”
“Such as it is.” He winced at the bitterness in his tone.
“Is it really so bad?” she questioned softly. “This career, this life you’ve built here with your friends?”
He studied her earnest expression, drowned in those brown eyes. She was so close, so beautiful. She smelled so freaking good he wanted to leap from the bed and take her like the beast he was.
More than that, he wanted to know Rowan—on the inside as well as out.
