Bound by Fate (Moon Bound Series Book 1) (34 page)

“Very well,” Gareth accepted with dignity.  Beth watched him as he stretched, loosening his muscles.  He really was a specimen of perfection, and even in the middle of all of this horror, she could appreciate his form.  He wore a loose fitting pair of fatigues with tightly laced boots and a forest green tank top.  His skin glistened with a light sheen of sweat, and his eyes warmed briefly upon meeting her gaze. 

The two combatants circled each other warily, each intent on bringing the other down.  Gareth seemed to see everything, from the cruel twist of Bradley’s lips to the way he held his injured leg back, favoring his left.  Bradley, no slouch in the violence department figured he had it all worked out, or so Beth imagined, as his mouth formed a taunting grin.  “Come on, let’s see if you have what it takes.”

Gareth said nothing, only thinned his lips in determination and feinted towards Bradley’s left, which Bradley immediately moved to intercept.  Like she already knew, he was no slouch, and quick besides.  With a grunt, Bradley swung, intending on taking Gareth’s head off, but his giant fist met air, as Gareth had already retreated and moved slightly to his own left, to deliver a punishing blow to the Alpha Male’s ribcage. 

Grunting in pain, Bradley lowered an arm to protect his ribs as he made an all out assault upon the other man, fists flying, spittle bubbling on his lips.  He was slower than usual, thanks to the ragged wound in the meat and muscle of his right leg courtesy of his own son, and Gareth was using it to his advantage.  Connect, and retreat, feint and misdirect, connect and retreat.  Little by little, her Bonded was getting the better of the huge man. 

Beth winced as Gareth lost his footing on an overturned rock, taking a forceful jab to the temple before moving back out of range. 
Another couple of those, and he’s finished,
Beth thought with her heart beating like something caged.  She could see him shake his head, as if to dislodge something, and she knew at once the punch had had more force behind it than she’d first thought.  His reactions were slower, though not by much, and his eyes seemed just a little wilder, as if he were having trouble focusing.

Just as Bradley connected another punch to Gareth’s gut, knocking the wind from him, Beth made to run into the foray, but Donovan quickly grabbed a hold of her ruff, whispering harshly, “we cannot interfere, this is pack law.”

She didn’t care one whit for pack law right then.  This was a fight to the death, and she knew for damn sure that if Bradley won, they’d all die. 
Why doesn’t Donovan realize this?

Both men were grappling in close quarters now, Bradley with his massive arms wrapped around Gareth like a serpent, slowly squeezing the life from him.  Gareth managed to slip one hand upward, wrapping it around the older man’s thick throat.  With a gasp, Bradley broke free, releasing Gareth.  They watched each other’s every breath intently, waiting for a sign of weakness.  Even with his torn leg, Bradley seemed to have the upper hand, and Gareth, growing wilder and wilder each second, was losing focus in his anger.

In a quick flurry, Gareth rushed the other man, rage driving him on, and Bradley grunted as a series of jabs broke his nose, and split his lip.  It was more a luck than skill, as he took the Alpha by surprise, but it leveled the scoring field.  A thin rivulet of blood would its way from a scalp wound to drip into the man’s eye, compromising his vision and he took a second to swipe his open palm across his brow.  Gareth took the opening, shooting in for another series of attacks, but it was a feint by Bradley. 

He ought to have known better.
  Even Beth knew better than to trust an opponent taking his eyes off you.  If the in was blatant, it wasn’t natural.  Not in a dominance fight, not when there was so much at stake.  When Gareth was close enough, Bradley once again folded him into a tight hug, this time leaving no room for him to wriggle anything loose, but Gareth wasn’t done yet.  As the Alpha grunted with effort, trying to quash the life from Gareth, he snapped his head forward, once, twice, three times.  The Alpha stumbled back, obviously dazed, and Gareth closed in, murder in his eyes.

Through sheer dumb luck, Bradley managed to catch Gareth with a swinging arm, knocking him sideways, while he regained his composure.  She could see the toll this was taking on both men, and longed for Donovan to loosen his grip so that she might finish it for them both by opening up his femoral artery.  In a split second, Gareth had regained his footing and came back at Bradley spitting mad. 

Bradley, still blinded in one eye by the stream of blood coming from his scalp, swung a fist and missed by an inch, the momentum of the blow carrying him forward until he ended up on his knees.  In one swift movement, Gareth was there, his hands again wrapped around the bigger man’s throat, watching as his face first turned red, and then purple, while his eyes goggled in shock. 

Beth quivered with relief.  It was over.  Bradley was almost dead, and Donovan released her slowly, head falling forward.  No matter the things he’d done, Bradley was still his father, and he was bound to feel conflicted, especially about his own role in the Alpha’s demise.  She nudged Donovan with her head, trying to convey her sympathies for all that had happened.  He nodded to her once, and she returned her gaze to Gareth and the dying Alpha.

Gareth’s face was a mixture of surprise and pain, his mouth open in an “O” as he gasped.  Beth followed the line of his body with a frown, a short yelp breaking free as she noticed Bradley’s hand, half formed into a claw, buried deep within Gareth’s midriff, so that even as he died, he brought his killer with him. 

The last sight Bradley Tall Grass saw before he died with a gurgle, was Beth’s jaws descending upon his throat to rent and tear the life from him.  She worried the flesh back and forth, the head shaking like a rag doll’s, until at last, she felt him go still beneath her.  His clawed hand slipped free of Gareth’s body and he slumped backward, holding the wound.  Blood seeped through, soaking his clothes and dripping to the ground in soft drip-drip-drip’s.  Beth’s shimmer ended with a very human scream torn from her throat as she rushed to cradle his head. 

Donovan, she noticed, had fled. 

“
No, no,” she pleaded, broken.  “Don’t leave me, please.”

“
Beth,” he gasped, raising a bloodied hand to her cheek and cupping it gently.  “I came for you.”

“
Please, please, please, please…”  She held his hand to her cheek as she sobbed and begged, rocking his limp body.  “Don’t, please, don’t leave me.”  Heaving sobs tore free of her as she watched the light fade in his eyes.  “Shimmer,” she told him angrily.  “Heal yourself!”

“
Can’t,” he whispered on a sigh.  “It’s not…as easy for…others…as it is…for you.”

She remembered the last time he’d said that to her, the night in the derelict Den House, just before she’d invited him to share her bed, which had started this whole mess.  “Please,” she begged again.  “Just try.”

“Quickly!” Margo rasped in the darkness.  “You must help him.”

“
I don’t know how!”

Donovan had returned, cradling the old woman to his chest as he ran flat out, breath heaving.  He set her down gently on the fallen log a few feet away and she frowned in thought.  “There is only one way,” she admitted.  “Though it may not work.”

“Tell me, please!”  Beth was in full blown panic mode, and Gareth was weakening by the minute.  He could barely lift his eyes to meet hers and she’d already taken the full weight of his arm in order to hold his hand to her cheek, where his fingers occasionally twitched.

“
You must take him to mate,” Margo explained, putting a hand up to stop Beth’s frantic question of how that would help.  “You know the ritual.  Take him to mate and ask the Great Mother for her blessing.”

“
What?  I don’t see how–”

“
Quickly, I said!  He doesn’t have long left in him.  A true Blessing may help him.”  Her tired eyes shut tight as she nodded to Donovan.  “Fetch the Healer,” she told him.  “We may have need of him if this works.”

Trying desperately to come up with the words, and failing miserably, Beth sobbed, putting all her emotion and fear into one, long shriek.

“Hush, child,” Margo told her harshly.  “Breathe.  Breathe.”  She regulated her own breathing, in, one-two-three, out, one-two-three.  “Slowly.  Think of the words, feel them.”

Beth slowed her breathing to match the elderly woman’s, and thought furiously about the ceremony she’d attended only nights before.  Suddenly the fog in her mind lifted and she began to utter the words.

“I ask you to witness as I take this man to mate,” she whispered fiercely.  “I say to you, that he is my one, true, mate and I will hold no other above him, but for the Great Mother herself.  And I ask her blessing on this union.”

Gareth’s eyes widened slightly, and he gazed at her in adoration.  All the love he felt for her swam to the surface and for the first time, Beth didn’t have to wonder how he felt, for she could sense it, smell it, and feel it.

“Witness me,” he whispered, garbling the words slightly.  Beth wondered if that would matter, or if the sentiment was all that counted.  “As I take…Beth to mate.  She is my one…true love.  My…mate.  Bless us, Great Mother.”

When nothing happened, her heart shattered and Beth leaned in close, tasting his breath.  She pressed her lips to his softly, crying openly.  “Don’t cry,” he told her with a grimace.  “I hate…making you…cry.”

“You never made me cry,” she lied, smiling sadly. 

“
Liar,” he whispered, nostrils flaring.  Even now he was reading her every emotion in her scent, so attuned to her, was he, and she loved him with all her heart for it.  “I love you,” she whispered as his eyes drifted closed.

She held him until his heart stopped beating, sobbing softly on his shoulder, curled up beside him on the soft earth.  “It is done, girl,” Margo told her, rising.  “There is nothing that can be done for it now.”

“I know,” she replied, feeling her tears burn a path down her cheeks.  “I know.”

That was how Shale and Donovan found them.  Beth still curled up crying beside her mate, and Margo standing over her, watching protectively.  Once they’d hauled the lifeless body of their Alpha away, Margo left her to her grief.  “We will return in the morning,” she told her, drifting away between the strong arms of Donovan and Shale.  “We will help you return him home.”

Donovan cleared his throat awkwardly.  “I need to talk, to explain–” he began, but Margo hushed him with a light smack on the shoulder. 

“
Let the girl be,” she demanded, angrily, her white hair floating in the breeze.  “Tomorrow is soon enough for talk.”

When she was alone with her mate, Beth felt like her entire future had fallen down around her.  She shimmered into her wolf-form, so that she could mourn him as was right.  Long through the night she howled her pain and heart break to the moon, hearing answering howls from near and far.  The world knew a wolf had died that night, and they shared her grief.  A little before dawn, with her throat hoarse and scratchy, she shimmered into human-form, and settled down to wait.  Legend said that if your grief were true, you could view their spirit leaving their body as the last of the moonlight was chased away by the rising sun.  She wanted to see him one last time, even if it was only in spirit.  But the sunrise came and went, without sight of Gareth’s spirit.  Beth fell asleep with fresh tears on her face.

The rustling of leaves caught her attention, waking her from a restless slumber, and a woman appeared stepping gracefully over the fallen log.  She was ethereally beautiful, a mixture of child and crone, and everything in between.  Her image seemed to shift between that of a buxom young woman, to a haggard old wolf, as she made her way forward on bare feet.  Her white hair hung down her back in a shining curtain, and her eyes, so still and calm brought Beth a measure of peace.  She instantly knew her.

“Great Mother,” she gasped.

“
My child,” the voice answered, a soft melodious sound that came not from her lips but from the very air itself.  “Why do you cry?”

“
My love is dead,” she answered, glancing at the still body of Gareth on the ground.  His eyes were closed and his chest was still, the ragged wound of his stomach still a raw and wet red maw, yet still he seemed so handsome to her.  A sob caught in her throat, but she choked it down, not wanting to offend the Mother of life and death.

“
So he is.”  She knelt down between them, blocking Beth’s view of Gareth and she suddenly felt so bereft, as if breaking her line of vision was all that kept the loneliness at bay.  “What would you give to have him live?”

Beth stared into those calm, still eyes and thought. 
What wouldn’t I give?
  “I would give much,” she eventually replied.

“
Would you give your own life?”  The eyes, so still a moment before, now whirled and swirled hypnotically. 

Beth sighed.  If it were the only way…  “Yes.”

“You would give up your life on this earth, so that he may live?”

“
Yes,” she replied again, without hesitation. 

“
Why?”

“
I love him.”  Simple and to the point.