Hot Blooded (Wolf Springs Chronicles #2) (6 page)

“So, if Fenners are direct descendants of the Fenris wolf, shouldn’t all werewolves look up to you?”

Justin laughed, a bitter, hard sound. “Wouldn’t that make life nice and easy? No. Look at all the religions in the human world. All the special, chosen people.”

“So . . . other werewolves were created in other ways?” She thought of her attack, the bite. How did all this get started?

“The Gaudins claim to be descended from the Beast of Gévaudan — a werewolf that terrorized the area of Gévaudan in France in the Middle Ages. It killed more than two hundred people and that’s a source of pride with the Gaudins. They are savages with no honor, no morality.”

And yet Katelyn knew that her friend Cordelia had had feelings for Dominic Gaudin — the alpha of the Gaudins — who had stood up to Lee Fenner for her on Halloween night. What she had seen of Dom didn’t make him seem any more savage than the werewolves of the Fenner pack.

“They’ve been spoiling for war for a long time,” Justin went on, and there was a hint of growl in his tone. “It makes no sense. North America is huge, so there’s no need to fight over territory, but they do. They sneak on our land, poach our prey, spy on us.”

The anger was back, simmering just below the surface. He was taut, as if ready to spring. “So it’s you versus them,” she said.

He shook his head. “No, there are other packs,” he said. “Most of them are pretty small. But there’s one big one.” She waited. Emotions flashed across his face, but she couldn’t read them. “The Latgale family. They call themselves the Hounds of God.”

“That’s so weird.”

“They don’t think so,” he said. “The pack came from Livonia. They said they were warriors who went down into hell to do battle with witches and demons. They believed that when they died, their souls were welcomed into heaven as reward for their service.”

“Do they still believe that?” Katelyn asked, thinking of the Hellhound again.

Justin shrugged. “I guess. I’ve never talked to one of them. Only Uncle Lee has, and he said their leader was crazy.” He made a face. “And we’re back to moody alphas.” He stopped abruptly. “Okay, we’re here.”

Katelyn looked around. “Here” looked like every other part of the forest to her. “Where?” she asked.

He grinned at her. “That’s what I want you to tell me.”

“O-kay,” she said, drawing the word out. “Just give me a second.” She started to pull out her phone, but he stopped her with a quick shake of his head.

“No GPS, no phones. I want you to tell me where we are.”

She looked straight at him. “The middle of the woods.”

“Now is not the time to be sarcastic, Kat.”

She sighed and bunched up her shoulders as she tried to figure out how long they’d been walking. Finally she pointed back the way they’d come. “We’re about a mile away from the house.”

“Good. Remember that.”

She cocked her head.

“It’s going to be up to you to find the way back later.” Before she could ask what he meant, he slapped her lightly on the back. “Tag, you’re it.”

Then he set out running. Katelyn stared after him in surprise for a second before she began chasing after him, bobbing and weaving around the trees. “You’re going too fast!” she shouted.

He turned his head over his shoulder and shouted back, “You’re going too slow.” And then he seemed to leap forward, his legs moving so quickly she couldn’t see them.

Startled and afraid of losing sight of him, she reached deep down inside herself. And she found speed that she would never have dreamed of.

Suddenly
she
was the one who raced so fast she was practically flying. She vaulted a fallen log with ease, darted between the trees, and then she passed Justin. She reached out and slapped his shoulder, then jumped out of the way of his reaching arms.

She laughed and ran faster, the trees beginning to blur by, and she felt dizzy and breathless and wildly happy all at the same time. Wind stung her face. She felt Justin’s hand brush her shoulder and she twisted in mid-stride, ready to tag him back.

But he wasn’t there.

She slowed, stumbled over her own feet, then stopped, turning in every direction, but she couldn’t see him.

“Justin!”

Only silence greeted her.

It was the first time she had been alone in the woods since her attack. And all the reasons she shouldn’t be out there alone sprang instantly to mind. Nervously, she rubbed the places on her arm where the trap had cut her. She’d heard something whispering to her again that morning. Calling her name. Promising. Threatening. Stalking. Even now, just thinking about it, she began to tremble. And it wasn’t just the Hellhound she had to worry about now. Someone had shot at her.

She began to jog back the way she’d come, but now her legs felt leaden, heavy. Her lungs filled with the smell of pine and mud and traces of the perfume she’d worn to school. She didn’t smell Justin at all. Didn’t see footprints, or broken-off tree limbs, or anything else to signal his route. The forest was just the forest, and she was wandering from one identical tree to the next.

She came to a stand of trees growing so closely together that Justin couldn’t have possibly passed through them. She walked along it, huffing, growing more nervous, and turned around to go back the way she had come. But she faced a V in the path that she didn’t remember. She took the left branch, but it looked unfamiliar, so she went back to the beginning and took the right fork. She didn’t recognize that, either.

Birds took flight overhead, startling her, and she raised herself on tiptoes to see if she could locate where they’d been roosting before they bolted. Maybe that was where Justin was. But she was too short to see over the bobbing pine branches in her way.

“Oh, forget it,” she muttered. She reached for her cell phone. The GPS would help her get her bearings so she could at least find the right way back to the house. But when her hand dipped into her jacket pocket, she realized that the phone was gone.

Ice water seemed to pour through her veins. Worse than being lost, she had lost the phone, her lifeline to civilization; the device that Cordelia had texted her on earlier that day and might contact again soon. She wasn’t sure if she had been sweating before, but she became hyper-aware of it now.

Something moved in the corner of her eye, and she ticked her glance in that direction. She saw only the trees. But it had to be Justin, she told herself. Messing with her.

“Marco,” she called out, a little mockingly, because she knew it would be uncool to sound afraid. But the truth was, she was getting more jittery.

“Marco Polo,” she called.

Something cold and sinister seemed to settle across her shoulders and she whirled around in a half circle; finding nothing, she glanced anxiously around, then upward, squinting. Pinpricks of gray afternoon light were barely visible above the treetops, and she heard the plaintive cry of a dove, things stirring in the underbrush.

There could be many things in the forest. A werewolf pack of things. Maybe they were hunting her. Maybe Lee Fenner had decided after all that she was too dangerous to be allowed to live. Maybe there was a bounty on her head.

And I knew how dangerous he is, and I got on Justin’s motorcycle and came here like an idiot anyway
, she thought. But she hadn’t really had an option, had she?

The weighty sensation pressed down and she shivered as if someone had just walked over her grave.

“Justin?” she croaked out.

A distant sound somewhere between a growl and a moan echoed against tree against tree against tree. Katelyn froze. It didn’t sound like a wolf. It didn’t sound like anything she had ever heard before in her life.

The woods around her went deathly quiet. No chirping birds; nothing stirring in the brush. Then she looked down to see a little rabbit standing completely still. About five feet from that one there was another, and it, too, didn’t so much as twitch its fluffy white cotton tail. They were so still that they both looked stuffed. Then she looked more closely and saw that the chest of the closer bunny was fluttering, as if it was panting. The other one, too. They were panicking.

The hair on the back of her neck rose. Not even the wind made a sound — it was as if it didn’t dare move, either. The forest was holding its breath.

Another moan vibrated through the forest.

Closer.

The rabbits scattered in terror. Cawing birds shot across the forest canopy. And something began to crash through the heavy growth. Something huge.

In her direction.

She took off like a shot, running blindly. She came to an incline and skidded, tumbling end over end as her slippery boots lost their purchase. She scrabbled to her feet, charging forward. Dodging nooses of Spanish moss and spindly outstretched twigs, she ran an obstacle course as the sound of breaking branches gained on her.

A squirrel skittered up the tree nearest to her. More birds burst from a tangle of vines and roots. The wind began to blow as if it had just woken up.

She kept going. And going. The crack and snap behind drove her faster. There was another growl, and she poured on speed. She twisted her ankle on a loose rock but managed to keep her footing. Then a strong smell filled her nose, almost like rot; and she felt something hot and moist against her shoulder, as if someone was breathing on her.

Oh, God. It’s a werewolf
. Justin couldn’t change at will yet, so it couldn’t be him. She ran faster, bobbling hard on her ankle, her breath coming in bursts. She came to a thicket of pines interlaced with each other. Wildly, she looked left and right. No way to pass. Her lungs on fire, she heaved in air as she dashed along the tree line. Then she spotted a low-hanging branch and jumped up to grab it. Tipping herself upside down, she thrust her legs up and over the limb and whipped herself right side up in a sort of modified gymnastics move like on the uneven bars. There was another branch above her head; she stretched and gripped it, and repeated the movement. Then she set her feet on the branch, wincing at the pain in her ankle, and grabbed onto an overhanging bough. She pulled herself up toward it, and looked down to the ground below.

She heard the moan again, and her heart stuttered. That was not a werewolf howl.

Shadows seemed to crawl along the ground.

Katelyn
.

She couldn’t tell if it was spoken aloud or in her head. But it was the same voice that had been coming after her when she had fallen into the trap.

The Hellhound?

The shadows darkened as she stared at them. Impulsively, she tried to swing herself onto the next higher branch but it cracked, broke.

She screamed as she fell. If something was down there, it would get her. Acting on pure instinct, she tucked and did a flip, then managed to stick a landing as she planted herself in the center of cold, menacing darkness.

Katelyn
, the voice said again.

“Help!” she bellowed.

Something exploded through the wall of branches and grabbed her.

4

Katelyn began to swing wildly at whatever held her.

“Kat! It’s me!”

Justin. He was there and he was shaking her by the shoulders. She batted crazily at him.

“What’s wrong with you?” he demanded, dodging her hands.

“The Hellhound!” she cried, pushing away from him. “Oh, my God, Justin, run!”

“No way. Not that again.” A flash of irritation crossed his face. “You just got turned around and freaked yourself out.” He grabbed her hands in both of his, jerking on them when she wouldn’t stay still. “Damn it, Kat.”

Panting, she looked back over her shoulder. The shadows were gone. “It was coming this way,” she insisted. “I know you heard the groans.” She looked down at her hands in his, and he let go. She almost grabbed onto him but he turned away and started walking. “Justin, there
was
something.”

As she kept close behind him, she could practically feel that something was watching her.

Letting her go.

For now.

Seconds later they were back in the clearing. And there stood Lee Fenner with a stopwatch in his hand. Back from wherever he had gone, he was dressed in jeans and a long-sleeved chambray shirt. He was very tall, with a shock of white hair, and his tanned face was lined like a worn leather satchel. In human form, he had nearly torn the hair from her head in a fury when she’d failed to act properly obedient. Swallowing hard, she tried to stay calm, but it was very difficult to pretend that she wasn’t scared to death.

He looked from the stopwatch to her, lids narrowing until his amber eyes were two golden slits. He clicked the timer and frowned at her. “Well, your leg’s not broken,” he said. “You’re not covered in blood. So what the hell took you so long?”

“She got lost,” Justin said before she could say anything. He squeezed her shoulder hard, a warning to stay quiet. “She’ll get the hang of it.”

Mr. Fenner grunted and trained his steely gaze on Justin. “That’s up to you, isn’t it, boy?”

“Yessir,” Justin said. “But you should have seen her, Uncle Lee. She’s a gymnast and she’s got moves we can use when we hunt. She was up in the trees like a monkey. She can climb up, look for prey. I’m thinking when she starts keeping her memory, she could do great moves when she’s changed, too.”

Mr. Fenner cocked a brow. “Oh?”

Katelyn quavered under his gaze. Could he have been the thing trailing after her? He wasn’t winded, and he was fully dressed. “I’ve been studying gymnastics for years.”

He grunted. “Maybe you’ll be useful after all.” He held up a warning finger. “You don’t say a word about any of this to your grandpa. Your training. Us. Not one word.”

“I haven’t and I won’t.” She tried to keep her voice steady. As he glared at her, she lowered her head to show respect . . . and so that he couldn’t see her clamped jaw. He was a tyrant, and she hated him as much as she feared him.

“Now get her home,” he ordered, and sauntered off in the direction of the house.