Dire Needs: A Novel of the Eternal Wolf Clan (35 page)

They’d been right when they worried she might not be strong enough. The mind was willing, but the flesh was all too weak.

And then, within seconds, her breath came fast, bones felt like they were twisting and turning in ways they shouldn’t and her face felt pulled into a grimace. She licked her lips and felt for the long canines that were disappearing. Her heart beat fast and she was so hot… and still, she couldn’t move, couldn’t scream, couldn’t do anything but let whatever was happening simply happen.

Surrender,
Sister Wolf told her.

Sister Wolf was pretty damned smart.

Finally, after what seemed like hours but she was sure had been only minutes, she stared down at her naked
human body, her clothing in tatters on the bed around her.

Had she ever really shifted? It could’ve been part of a dream, except her hand moved and plucked some vanilla-colored fur off the black sheets.

And she could move, stand. She tested her voice by calling for Rifter once she’d pulled on the first shirt she wore. It smelled like Rifter.

She had her nose buried in the fabric she’d pulled up around her face when Jinx answered instead, came up the stairs at lightning speed.

“I’m okay,” she told him, and he still insisted on her sitting down on the side of the bed so she didn’t faint on him.

“You’ve been through a shift—you’re not okay.”

“Do you know why I woke up?” she demanded, and he pressed his lips together grimly but refused to answer her. “I know why too.”

“Let it be, Gwen.”

“I can’t—you know that.”

Jinx turned away from her to stare out the window at the storm currently raging at the windows, beating the house with its heavy, fat drops. She rubbed her arms and listened to Sister Wolf.

Tell me what you know,
she demanded, and to her surprise, she got an answer.

Listen—he needs you.

She pricked her ears, knew what was happening. She was up off the bed and down the stairs like a shot, faster than she’d ever run in her life. She burst out of the back door into the pouring rain, which felt like a thousand needles piercing her skin, and still, she ran faster.

“It’s too soon,” Jinx called. “You’re not strong enough to shift now—and you can’t do what you’re planning as a human!”

He was right about that part, of course. She ignored him as she ran, heard his curses behind her, his footfalls heavy. If he caught her, she’d never rescue Rifter.

She also knew he wouldn’t leave the house unguarded with Harm inside—Rogue had told her that—and she hoped he’d been right.

She ran faster, enough that she felt her muscles taut with the strain, and she burst into the wolf within seconds and ignored the sudden, sharp pain as the fierce need to stop Rifter was all she could think about.

Consequences didn’t matter. The rush of the change charged through her. She was like a moth to a flame, not caring about the burn. She caught Rifter’s scent, stronger now, and then sighted him.

Rifter was handcuffed with silver chains that held his wrists behind his back. There were also two silver knives sticking out of his side, subduing him.

But his pain and anguish still vibrated through him, and she felt every inch of it. Nothing Rifter could’ve said or done would’ve stopped her, and she watched his face as she made a beeline toward the man standing in front of him, with his back to her.

The man named Mars turned at the last minute and yelled. A grace combined with indisputable power surged through her when Rifter went down with the silver spikes in his side and moved out of the way. It was pure animal instinct that pushed her forward, thick claws on front paws slamming Mars to the ground.

They both hit the earth hard. She heard several cracks, but it didn’t seem to be any of her bones. Mars groaned as she ripped with her teeth at the arm holding the gun. He screamed and she knew it wouldn’t be enough to stop him.

She was going to kill him. As much as she wanted to blame Sister Wolf for all of this, a part of her wanted this man to pay for trying
to take her family away from her.

She could’ve been living at the very least with her father. The unspeakable anger charged out of her, and although she was a new wolf, her emotions made her a force to be reckoned with.

A heavy weight slammed her back, and she attempted to shake it off, felt teeth at her own neck even as she attempted to tear at the human’s beneath her. She skirted out from between human and Were, Sister Wolf wild and wiry at the same time.

The Were bared its teeth and came at her; she didn’t give him an inch, took him on and found herself surrendering everything to Sister Wolf—she knew exactly what to do. It was like Gwen sat back and watched, saw her wolf rip the Were’s throat out—and the victory howl tore from her own throat.

Despite still being handcuffed, Rifter must’ve taken care of the second Were, because he was next to her, dead. She watched him work to fish the keys to the chains out of the dead Were’s pocket, and a surge of relief ran through her.

It was short-lived, because Mars was down, not out. He was trained, and he struggled up, the gun pointed at Rifter, who struggled away with the silver embedded in him still.

The blood… my God.

“Don’t, Gwen,” Rifter told her, but Sister Wolf had other plans. And when Mars turned the gun on her and fired, she barely felt it.

But before she could take him on again, Rifter had him down, was holding the man down with a hand on his throat to subdue him. Still in human form, he moved his hands to the sides of Mars’s head and turned it, fast and hard.

All hail, the bastard’s dead.

But there was no time to celebrate, because Rifter collapsed then, falling off Mars onto the grass. Helplessly, she circled him, nudging him, trying to get any kind of response.

You have to let me back out,
she told Sister Wolf.
I can help him.

She stared at Rifter and forced herself to concentrate, pictured herself turning from wolf to woman, waited for the pain she’d felt before. Prayed for it.

Rifter groaned and spit out some blood. His eyes closed again and she cried out to him, except it came out a howl.

Concentrate. Surrender. We’re one…

And she did. Closed her eyes and trusted. When she opened them again after the hot flash of pain, she was naked in the rain.

She dropped to her knees next to Rifter. Shook him until he opened his eyes and asked, “Tell me what to do.”

“Taking out the knives would be a good first step.”

“Sarcastic bastard,” she muttered. “I knew that—I just didn’t know if it would hurt your wolf.”

She tugged at the first handle and realized she’d have to yank it out. She did so quickly, both knives, and Rifter passed out again, his breath rough.

Her head began to swim—the shift had been hard on her. And they were in the same position they’d started in. When he opened his eyes again, he asked her, “Why the hell did you do this? They woke you up. They were prepared to leave all the Dires alone in exchange for me.”

“And then what?”

“I’d find a way out once you were all safe. I had a plan.”

“You’re not an island, Rifter.”

“That’s
funny, coming from you. A one-woman wrecking crew,” he practically roared.

“I saved you from yourself.”

“Ditto.”

“You’ve been around for centuries and that’s the best comeback you’ve got?”

He grabbed her, pulled her down and kissed her hard, fast, until their bodies were practically melded together. It didn’t matter about the weather—the pain—the fear. All that mattered was that she was in his arms again.

Finally he stopped, took his mouth from hers. “We can’t stay here—got to get back and figure out how much trouble you just caused us.”

V
ice commando-crawled toward the mausoleum in the dark. Sarge had taught him a hell of a lot about demolition, and he loved putting that shit to good use. It was gonna blow to high heaven and take a few weretrappers with it.

Sarge had died a few years ago—Agent Orange or some shit, they said. Vice had visited him once in the nursing home, although he’d worn a disguise and pretended to be there for someone else, because he couldn’t have approached the man looking exactly the same as he had thirty years earlier.

Stray waited back in the woods—his lookout and backup. The street kid in Stray would never change—he was as tough as shit.

The thing was, if Rifter was going to give himself to the weretrappers to save Gwen, Vice was going to do everything in his power to blow the weretrappers off the face of the earth. And then he’d kidnap Seb and make the man his own personal spell caster.

Seb’s place of demon worship was next on the list. But first things first.

He picked the lock easily—child’s play to him—and creaked the heavy door open. The chill blew through him like a winter’s bite in the ass. “
Try to keep me out,” he muttered to whatever the hell guarded the place and heard light laugher in return.

Fucker. He shifted around, content that he was wearing enough protective amulets to keep himself covered, and checked the place out.

There were single tables on the opposite ends of the two crypts. Otherwise, it was disturbingly clean and quiet for a place causing so much mayhem in the world.

When he looked up, he saw the spell circle on the ceiling. No doubt the charms were buried in the floor. Sure enough, he found what looked to be new concrete in the middle of the floor.

He narrowed his focus, channeled the rage he felt toward the trappers and Mars into this job. With precision, he wired the place to blow, in case he got stopped earlier than expected. He had just enough C4 to keep the blow from spreading too far, because he didn’t need the other spirits whose graves he might disturb coming after him.

Hurry, son… need your help…

It might be the most his mother had ever spoken to him when he was alive, and it was just as annoying now as it was then.

Once the wiring was complete, it was time to take care of the supernatural shit. That was trickier than C4 and hand grenades combined.

Sweat poured off his chest and back—he’d stripped down to just jeans as he dug through the flooring to the fragrant earth below, and then he dug through with his hands, looking for the bones and the bag of charms that cast the spell.

The mausoleum was in a perfect position—a crossroads. Vice wasn’t sure how they’d missed it before, but he saw it clearly now, the perfect cross of walkways converging on the gray stone building.

After Jinx did more research, they’d discovered it belonged to Mars’s cousins, several times removed. Probably related to the people Rifter’s pack had killed all those years ago.

He sprinkled the power along the ground—it would break any spell that was cast here. He salted the rest of it, in case there were any bones that he’d missed when he’d dug out the concrete floor.

Nothing good ever came from unholy ground.

He stood, surveyed his work. Texted the all clear to Stray and waited to hear from Jinx.

This was a house of cards—he had to time it exactly right or else he’d fuck up Gwen’s shift but good.

They didn’t hold out much hope for Rogue. In fact, it could make things worse for him, but they needed to get Rifter and Gwen out of trouble first.

His phone beeped. He stared at Jinx’s
it’s a go
text as he exited and blew the mausoleum to holy hell behind him.

Rifter insisted on carrying her back to the house. Gwen was already wet and cold, and he was faster, even hurt, so she let him. Figured she’d done enough damage and arguing would only make things worse. Plus, she’d overdone it for sure, and her body was feeling the effects, as Jinx had predicted.

But she wouldn’t admit all that to Rifter.

She saw Jinx at the door, watching, but when Rifter brought her inside he wasn’t there. Probably giving them privacy, which was good, since she was naked.

He put her in front of the fire wrapped in a blanket while he went to get her dry clothes.

When he came back, he remained stripped down, despite the other blankets available.

“Aren’t you freezing?” she asked.

“
Wolves are good in the rain,” he said, shaking his body off and ignoring the towel.

“You’re so angry with me.”

“With myself,” he corrected. “I’ll fix this.”

Obviously, he no longer felt her help was necessary. She contented herself with the fact that they were both safe and pulled the blanket tighter as the rain showered the house.

She fully expected to see Noah’s ark float by—that was how biblical this rain was.

According to the radio, the town was flooding. Roads closed, buildings took in feet of water and emergency sirens wailed in the distance. The Dire house’s power flickered eerily and stayed on, albeit slightly dimmed.

She’d never given much thought to the supernatural realm at all. Now it was in her face, all the time, and couldn’t be ignored if she wanted to. It was as brash and obvious as Vice, and she wondered how she could’ve been so blind to it. How all humans were…

She knew that this storm signaled the start of bad things, but right now it was the only thing keeping the police—and possibly the weretrappers—from them.

She didn’t think it was the right time to ask if witches could swim.

And then Jinx came in, and his news promised to turn the quiet Dire house into a scene of mass confusion shortly.

Jinx hadn’t wasted any time before telling Rifter about Vice readying to blow the mausoleum and finishing with a blunt, “We’re kind of fucked.”

“Why did Vice do that?” she asked.

“He’s trying to free Rogue—and you—and the Dire army. I stayed here in case Rogue suffered any ill effects,” Jinx said. “So far, none.”

“The police—”

“
Already have our names—a safeguard, thanks to Mars and his paranoia. He’ll keep the outlaws—and any new Weres who come his way—under his protection and safe.”

“He’s dead.”

“He’s got two brothers—one’s a police chief,” Jinx said.

Cain came in then, quiet as always, surprised them by saying, “Liam called Walker and Tals out. He said he’ll take them on tonight if necessary.”