Echo Falls (18 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

“Here,” Cinder said, pointing to a dirt road ahead.

Aidan pulled into yet another one of the dirt roads heading into the mountains and dropped off three werewolves before pulling back onto the main road. He would have liked to have spread the pack out even more, but he didn’t dare when one group faced the possibility of finding the Hunter. Three might not even be enough, but at least one of them could let out a howl if it came to a fight.

He passed Will, who was in the process of dropping off another trio of werewolves, and flashed his lights to signal they would be pulling into the next path. He, Will and others had been leap-frogging their way down the highway at Axel and Cinder’s directions, stopping at every dirt road to drop off groups to search. They’d each been given one piece of Charlotte’s clothing and one piece of Phoebe’s clothing to work with. The rest of the pack would be meeting at their usual place, the familiarity of the territory making it easier to work with fewer wolves in a larger area.

That had been a small blessing in amongst all the bad news. After re-examining the murder cases and researching the surrounding area, Axel and Cinder had set a narrowed area where they felt sure the Hunter would be hiding.

The wait for sunset had been mental hell on the whole pack but especially on Elle. She had long since stopped crying and gone into a state of emotional lockdown. Even as her pack leader, Aidan hadn’t dared to suggest she stay behind at the house to wait while the rest of the pack searched. Just the thought floating around in his mind while he looked at her had earned him one of her worst glares. She rode with Will and Axel.

Squished between Aidan and Cinder in the front of the truck, Mia sulked and moaned as she tried to get comfortable with her hands still taped together behind her back. She had been shuffled from pack member to pack member as they arranged for the larger search of the area around the falls. She’d stubbornly said nothing until Aidan had threatened letting her ride with Will. Then she confirmed that they had the right idea with searching around the falls but said nothing more.

He could barely bring himself to look at her. Every time he did his mind filled with the image of the kettle swinging around to connect with the back of Phoebe’s head before she slumped to the floor. He clenched the steering wheel until his knuckles turned white and his stomach clenched painfully.

I’ll find you Phoebe. Just hold on.

He parked the truck, turned it off and then got out to walk over to the other door. Cinder had already gotten out and walked over to Axel. As Aidan helped Mia get out to face the remaining pack members he could feel her shivering. He frowned, surprised at the degree of sympathy he felt for her. She could have been desperate or the Hunter had threatened her. Surely only those kind of circumstances could cause a wolf to betray her pack.

As she stepped onto the ground, she met his gaze. Then she spit in his face.

He wiped off his face before closing the door. Then he turned toward her and said quietly, “No matter what happens to you from this point on – no matter
what
– consider yourself without the protection of this pack.”

She stared at him until he took her upper arm and guided her over to where the others stood. Having already heard more than enough, the rest of the pack glared at her, some going so far as to snap and snarl at her. Aidan urged her to stand in front of the group.

“Let’s get straight to the point. What do you know, Mia?” Aidan asked, crossing his arms across his chest. “You need to help us. For Charlotte’s sake.”

“What do I get out of it?”

“I won’t kill you,” Elle said, fixing her with an icy stare.

Mia looked a little paler in the fading light and took a deep, shaky breath. But she still said nothing, raising her chin in defiance.

Will stepped forward, his face an ugly snarl. He reached out and no doubt would have thrown her to the ground if a couple of the pack members hadn’t stepped in to hold him back.

“Where is the Hunter? Where is he?” he yelled, fighting against those holding him back. “He has my
daughter
!”

She stepped back and would have fallen had Aidan not pushed her upright.

 “Okay!” she said. “Alright. But nobody touches me. Nobody! Not a single scratch.” She looked around the group until she had everyone’s grudging nods. “I already told you; I don’t know where he is. But I do know he has a crossbow with silver bolts for it. He also has silver spray like pepper spray, only bigger.”

“Any guns?” someone asked.

“No.” She fidgeted. “He doesn’t like guns. He’s a traditionalist.”

 “Anything else?” Aidan asked.

“I told you all I know,” she said with all the venom she could muster. Then she sighed. “He’s holed up in some cave around here with the bitch and the kid.”

Aidan resisted the urge to say or do anything he’d regret later. Will shook free of the pack and stalked toward his car.

“Let’s go,” Aidan said. “We need to stick to the falls and the surrounding caves as close as we can. If he’s used another route, one of the other groups will find him and let us know. Let’s start searching.”

“What do we do with her?” a woman asked and pointed to Mia.

“Do with me?” Mia asked. “
Do
with me? I can tell you what to
do
with me, you worthless -”

“Mia!” Aidan snapped.

“We’re wasting time,” Elle said.

Suddenly Will walked up behind Mia and placed a cloth over her mouth and nose. As she squirmed and slowly sank to the ground, he said, “Mia Ellis, you are under arrest for assisting in the kidnapping of Charlotte Peterson and Phoebe Martin. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law.”

Once she had been fully knocked out, Aidan and the other pack members still in human form stared at Will. A few of the wolves looked between their leader and his second, whining with uncertainty.

“We don’t have time for games,” Will said, standing up and tossing Aidan the bottle of chloroform. “And we can’t trust her. This will knock her out until we find the girls. Will you help me load her into your truck?”

Aidan gave him a look that promised reprimand later but still helped him load Mia into the truck bed. Just in case she did wake up before they wanted her to, they bound her ankles with duct tape as well. When she had been settled, Aidan discarded his clothes and took a deep breath before transforming into the wolf.

Axel and Cinder followed suit, their temporary status as pack members still holding.

Once he had become the wolf, Aidan wanted to take off to find his mate and the pup straight away, but a human held him back. Will, still in human form, maneuvered Aidan’s legs into a specially designed backpack that held food, water, medical supplies and light clothing – all of which they might need by the end of the night. Will unzipped the bag and Aidan caught sight of a stuffed purple rabbit that had Charlotte’s scent all over it before Will stuffed it in the bag and zipped it up again.

Will then turned into the wolf, the last of the pack to do so, and turned to Aidan.

Aidan didn’t like the feel of the human pack on his back, but he remembered it would help his missing mate so he tolerated the feeling. With yips and howls to his pack mates, he began the hunt.

CHAPTER THIRTY

Charlotte finally exhausted herself into deep sleep and Phoebe brushed some of her curls away from her face. Phoebe wished she could brush the bad memories aside for her so easily. Even if nothing worse happened, she would have trouble processing it all. And she had a bad feeling in her stomach that sitting in a damp cave wasn’t going to be the worst part of the night for either of them.

Had she really been at her apartment curled up in her bed with Aidan only hours ago? Had she truly, finally, satisfied the urge within both her and the wolf by making love with him? She shivered. If he was here now…

No use thinking of that.
She looked over at the pond.
He’s not here.

She looked up at Liam, who still cleaned his crossbow, and wondered how she had ever fallen in love with him. Those days seemed such a lifetime away and were now tainted with the horror of the past months.

He pulled on a pair of gloves before loading the first silver bolt into the crossbow. Her eyebrows furrowed together as she watched, knowing something wasn’t quite right but not being able to put her finger on it.

“Why?” she asked, blinking in surprise when the word came out of her mouth of its own free will.

“Why what?” He didn’t so much as glance up at her.

She licked her lips, already gone dry with nearly a full day without any water. “You don’t need me. I was never going to help you. Why am I still alive? And why Charlotte? Yes, you want to make her a Hunter, but why take her and bring her here? Why not just take her later?”

He looked at her. “You have never heard of ‘bait’? It just so turned out that you serve the purpose of bait as well. For the alpha male no less.” He smirked. “It did not take
you
long to start screwing someone new.”

She moved to look away, but she raised her chin instead. She would not be made to feel ashamed of Aidan, certainly not by Liam. He arched an eyebrow at her silent defiance, but it only amused him rather than intimidated or impressed him. She pursed her lips and looked at the ground.

“Your male will come looking for you along with the strongest of the pack, I suspect, for the child,” he went on. He sounded like he was giving a university lecture or thinking about a strategy game rather than plotting the murders of innocent people. “I will kill them as well as any others who come along either to their rescue or yours. In one night I will have eliminated most, if not all, of the pack. Easily. Then, of course, you.”

Of course.

“Do you remember the night I killed your brother?”

She closed her eyes.

“You do. How could you forget? The night I found out about your betrayal and killed your only family.” His voice took on a darker tone. “Do you remember biting me?”

She looked up sharply at him. Bit him? No. She couldn’t have. Or did she?

“Before you ran away and let me kill your brother, you bit me.”

Her mouth fell open slightly. “You’re one of us. That’s why you can’t touch your silver bolts without gloves. You’re a werewolf.”

No wonder he not only pursued her but played with her mind. He didn’t just want to kill her; he wanted revenge on her for turning him. It had all been an accident; she would never willingly insult her kind by making him one of them. But she had bit him nonetheless, and now he had known two full moons as a werewolf, the thing he hated the most.

He shot to his feet. “I am
not
one of you! I am not your
kind
. You made me ill when you bit me, but that will soon be taken care of. Once I have exterminated all your new friends using the abilities my illness has given me, I will come back and have the enjoyment of killing you. I will restore my humanity.”

“What?”

“You are not only bait, Phoebe, but the means for me to restore my complete, pure humanity.”

She laughed, a guttural, abrupt sound. “Being a werewolf doesn’t work like that, Liam. Don’t you think that if it did, there would be a lot fewer packs and a lot more of us killing each other?” She laughed again. “You’ve been reading too many books. About vampires!”

“Keep your mouth shut.”

“It’s the truth! You’re thinking of vampires in books. Wolves are wolves. Once bitten, forever wolf.”

“Quiet!”

She laughed even harder, genuine mirth flooding through her. “There is no cure! Killing me will do
nothing.
You are a werewolf for as long as you live!”

He stalked over to her, crossbow in one hand. He raised his other hand and slapped her. He raised his hand again, and she moved to protect Charlotte in case his fury land on her. But he only looked at her for a few moments before lowering his hand.

“You had better hope you are wrong.” He spit on her and grabbed a lantern, walking out of the cave far enough to leave only his shadow in her view.

Clenching her jaw, she placed one hand against her stinging cheek. The urge to laugh still bubbled up inside her. Liam couldn’t be the figure of terror in her nightmares anymore. She’d finally stood up to him and he’d revealed himself as a desperate, misguided fool.

She looked down at Charlotte. On her own, she might not have found the strength, but Charlotte was a child. Not just any child but her friend and pack mate’s child. If nothing else, having a pack meant that she protected the pack as they would protect her and as they all would protect Charlotte.

She took a deep breath, finally releasing what she had spent years trying desperately to control.

The wolf was more than ready. Finally Phoebe was as well.

She slowly unzipped her sweater and took it off, shifting Charlotte from one arm to the other as she kept her gaze locked on Liam’s shadow. Wrapping Charlotte in her sweater, she carefully put the sleeping girl on the ground where she would be mostly hidden by a boulder.

Careful not to make any noise, she began to take off her clothes, and the wolf waited for her opportunity.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

A howl cut through the mountains as easily as wind through the trees, making all the wolves stop and look in the direction of the sound. Aidan took just long enough to give a shorter, answering howl before taking off at full speed, the other wolves following closely.

They reached the cave entrance within minutes and found the Hunter had already struck. A wolf whimpered while two pack members, who had transformed back into their human forms, comforted her and tried to remove the silver trap caught around her leg. Aidan whimpered at the sight of it, his human side not sure if the female would lose part of her leg or be able to keep it.

Finally they got her free and wrapped her leg with some of their emergency clothing. Recognizing his leader even as a human, one of the men walked over to Aidan and knelt down.

“I think this is only the beginning. We’ll take her to help. Be careful in the caves.”

Aidan licked the man’s hand and then led the now reunited groups inside. In his wolf form, he could smell Phoebe, Charlotte and a third scent. He paused and snuffled at the ground. The third scent had the strange combination of both human and wolf that only Weres had. And he knew this scent. In his wolf form, it came strong enough so he could finally place it in his mind.

The Hunter who’d kidnapped Phoebe and Were who’d attacked her were one in the same.

He moved forward slowly, sensing an even worse enemy than he’d anticipated.

***

Phoebe crouched down low to the ground, carefully placing one paw then another on the cave floor as she moved forward. Liam had moved out of sight, but she could still smell him and hear an occasional shuffle. She pricked her ears forward to hear the slightest movement. She stood up over his supplies, trying to get a glimpse of him.

She heard him laugh before he came around the cave wall, swinging his lantern around. She whined and jumped back as the pain screamed through her head. Blood ran into her left eye and she raised a paw to try to wipe it away before the wolf took control once again, focusing her on her enemy rather than small distractions.

“Shame, shame, Phoebe,” he said, taking off his jacket. “I thought you would at least use the bravery you had acquired to face me as a human.”

She peed on his backpack.

Scrunching his nose with disgust, he took off his shirt and then his pants buckle. Then, keeping his eyes on her, he took off his shoes and the rest of his clothes. He stood in front of her naked, studying her.

She wanted to move.
Needed
to move. But she couldn’t get herself to do so much as crouch and raise her ears.

“I have to thank you for telling me the truth,” he said, lowering himself to his knees. “Knowing that I am stuck with this condition for the rest of my life has opened my eyes. I see now that tonight is my last night to live.”

She howled.

His eyes narrowed. “I also see that I have no reason to wait to kill you.”

Without hesitation, she lunged at him. Even as a new wolf, he would be much more of a problem against her in wolf form than he would be as a human. But she heard Charlotte cry, distracting her human side enough for him to dodge her. She turned back on him, only to find herself looking at a spray canister aimed at her. She managed to duck away before he could spray her full in her face, but he sprayed silver all along her side.

She howled with pain and tried to rub her side in the dirt. She caught glimpses of him turning into a wolf, but she couldn’t get past the pain enough to take advantage of his vulnerability. Suddenly, she remembered the pond and managed to roll, crawl and drag herself over and into it.

The water worked instantly like a cool salve against her fur and skin. She pressed herself against every surface she could find in the surprisingly deep water until the burning faded into pinprick stinging.

When she emerged from the water, she shook and then froze. Liam had finished turning, and he now stood staring at her. His scent wafted over to her and she sniffed. That scent… His scent! Indescribably Liam and something different – something she recognized.

She hit the ground, what little breath she had knocked from her lungs. Her head hit the concrete last, sending small sparks of light floating in front of her… Her attacker growled and began slashing at her. Instinct kicked in and she curled into fetal position.

A wild dog attacked her now. A big dog with vicious claws and teeth it used to tear into her exposed back and bite into her thigh and shoulder. She slowly regained her breath, but she could only use it to scream her throat raw.

Her every hair stood on edge as she faced him. So he had begun the nightmare in Echo Falls even sooner than she had realized. He had attacked her in his newly acquired wolf form and nearly killed her. Again.

This would be the last time he ever threatened her life.

They faced each other, teeth bared. His eyes were wide and tail held high, and she struggled against the urge to whine and lower her tail. Though the wolf didn’t quite understand the words her human side repeated –
you
are
the dominant wolf, you
are
the dominant wolf
– she understood the feeling behind them. She held her tail as high as possible and waited for him to make his move.

He leapt at her, nearly knocking her over as he snarled and tried to bite her muzzle. She moved too quickly for him, rolling onto her belly and kicking her hind legs as hard as she could into his belly. He yelped and leapt back, confused for a moment at the un-wolf like move.

As a new wolf with no one to guide him, he would still be easily overwhelmed by the mind and the instincts of the wolf. He would act and fight like a wolf, albeit a young one, until his human side could manage enough will for logical human thought. With her human logic and wolf strength working toward a single goal together with ease, she could use his confusion to her advantage. All of her human distress melted away as she became more complete than she ever had been before as wolf or as human.

He lunged and snapped at her again, sending them into a furious dance of biting and growling. Every time he tried to snap his powerful jaws around her neck, she managed to elude him, but every time he managed to get a little closer. What he lacked in control of attack, he made up for in blind fury. Whatever had been left intact with his human mind simply wanted to kill.

One of his claws to her muzzle after she’d bitten his belly sent them both back a few steps for breath and bearing. He frothed at the mouth, looking fierce and completely in the throes of madness. Without thought, she whimpered again and lowered her tail.

The mark of submission inspired him and he leapt forward again, sending her tumbling back. He scratched, tore and bit until the sting of the remaining silver powder became a welcome irritant to keep her conscious. Her human side wondered if he had managed to break a couple of her ribs and if he’d completely taken off her left ear. The wolf squirmed, not nearly as ready as her human side to be distracted by injuries.

Again, he opened his mouth to bite her exposed neck but she rolled to her side enough to show the less weak back of her neck. Before he could get any sort of grip with his jaws, she stood up as fast as she could. One of her paws almost buckled beneath her and she faltered, throwing him off but not completely.

She panted, trying to throw him off the rest of the way but lacking the energy to do it. As much as a single-mindedness between human and wolf had done her well, it couldn’t change him being the larger wolf. But he didn’t know her doubts and looked at her with his own uncertainties.

The human child cried and screamed and his ears perked up. His human at least had enough presence of mind to see an advantage and he stalked toward the child. 

Seeing the child not as a human but as a pup to be protected, she scrambled forward.

A howl from somewhere else in the caves echoed around them and they stopped. His jaw relaxed slightly, and that was all she needed. Using all the force in her back legs to propel her forward, she raised her mouth up and clamped her jaws around his exposed throat.

He tried to fight her off, turning and pawing at her body, but she held fast and he quickly weakened. His blood began to fill her mouth. The wolf saw nothing wrong in this, simply waiting for her kill to die. But the human couldn’t bear it and released him, limping over to the pond. She drank the cool water as fast as she could to get the taste out of her mouth.

She then collapsed in front of the pond, watching as he whimpered, teetering back and forth as he walked to the cave entrance. Without warning, he stopped and turned, nudging something with his nose. Something didn’t feel right and she got to her paws, trying to see what he had. Then he began pawing at it, and she realized too late.

Even in his ego-driven mind, he had thought of the possibility of her attacking him. He had set up a final part of his plan that he could accomplish as man or wolf.

She howled and jumped in front of Charlotte just as he trigged the crossbow to fire.