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The rope went taut, digging underneath my
arms.

“
Wait, Dad, you need to
know—”

“
Later, Ellie.”

I had to force my legs to engage or be
scraped against the side of the fissure as whoever was up top
hauled upward. My muscles were shaking with fatigue before I was
even halfway up. The pain of the rope digging in under my arms and
across my chest was the only thing keeping me fully conscious. When
I reached the top, arms slipped beneath mine, hauling me to solid
ground. Something pressed to my neck as he laid me down.

I turned my head just in time to see Patrick
pull the trigger. I felt a sharp sting against my throat.

“
Night, night,
Elodie.”

The scream died in my throat as everything
faded to black.

Chapter 14

Elodie

When
I was ten, Dad took me on
vacation to the beach. It was a rare thing, getting to play in the
ocean, and I strayed out too far and got caught in a riptide. I
still remembered being tossed like a ragdoll, powerless against the
surging current that dragged me, while my hands scrabbled for
purchase against the sandy bottom. By the time I fought my way
free, I was half a mile down the beach.

Fighting my way back to consciousness was
worse than that. Every virtual inch was a struggle, and each time I
came anywhere near the surface, the tranquilizers dragged me back
under. It would have been an easy thing to let go and just sink
into oblivion. But my father didn’t know that Patrick was a killer.
Who knew what the son of a bitch was doing to Dad while I was off
in a drug induced stupor.

That thought made me stop struggling for a
bit. What was I going to wake up to? More blood? More death? The
body of the only other person in the world who’d ever cared about
me?

No!

Panic was enough to boost me the rest of the
way. I broke through to consciousness in silence, as though I was
breaking through water and had to hold in the gasp that wanted to
erupt. No need to alert Patrick I was awake yet. I listened for a
while. To my left was a crackling fire. Someone poked at it. I
could hear the rush of cinders as some of the logs collapsed. I
couldn’t hear anybody else.

Where was Dad?

“
Oh good, you’re awake.”
Patrick sounded conversational.

I froze, though I wasn’t aware that I had
moved. What had given me away?

“
What the hell did you do?”
Dad’s voice. Groggy. Patrick must have tranqed him too.

“
Sorry about that, Nate.
But I couldn’t have you getting in the way, you see.”

“
In the way of
what?”

I could hear him shift somehow and tried to
open my eyes, but they refused to cooperate.

“
What the hell have you
done to my daughter?” Fury sharpened his voice.

Dad was struggling against something. Ropes,
I guessed. My own hands were bound behind my back, my arms numb
from the weight of my body.

“
She’ll come to eventually.
I may have overdosed her a bit for her size, but I couldn’t have a
werewolf shifting before I could restrain her.”

My dad went very still. “You’re the
hunter.”

Patrick said nothing, and I had a ridiculous
notion that he’d just bowed, like an actor claiming kudos for an
especially notable performance.

“
Why? What did we ever do
to you?”

“
You to me? Nothing. It’s
an ancient feud, really. Puts the Hatfield and McCoys to shame. It
all goes back to the first she-wolf of your line. Or her line,
really.” Patrick’s voice took on a lecturing tone. “Our very
colorful family history has her as being the spawn of Satan, which
I’ve always thought was a bit far-fetched. Something about some
ancestor of mine who was a widower marrying some ancestor of hers
who was pregnant by another man. My ancestor raised the girl as his
own. And what thanks did he get? She grew up, turned into a wolf,
and slaughtered him. His son by his first wife vowed revenge, to
wipe out her and her progeny.”

Brynne’s step-brother was the first hunter,
I realized. That explained why the hunters had always been after my
family and not werewolves in general.

“
And so it has gone through
the centuries. My family were hunters. Her family were beasts. And
nobody ever seemed to actually manage to carry out the fundamental
mission: to destroy the wolf line. Until me. I was the first one
who was smart about it.

“
See, I didn’t
want
to devote my life to this like my father and his father and his
father. But, oh, it was supposed to be some sacred
duty
. I
can’t even remember all the lies I told my wife while I was
tracking down Rosalind. But I figured it out. I tracked her down.
And she was already pregnant with your bastard. The next generation
already started.”

Dad loosed a growl at that.

Patrick paid him no attention, too intent on
telling his story. “But Rosalind’s father, stupid, stupid man that
he was, talked her into giving up the baby. And with that I devised
the perfect plan. Get everything over in one, fell swoop. My wife
and I would adopt the child—”

“
You?
You were the
one who was supposed to take her?” asked my dad in
horror.

“
Well yes. It was all very
straight forward. I’d take care of Rosalind, and afterward, it
would have been so easy to make Elodie’s death look like a case of
SIDS. No blood, no mess. An end to all future generations. Simple.
Elegant. And this ridiculous war would be over and I could get on
with my life like a normal person.”

I couldn’t repress a shudder at the casual
way he talked about murdering a baby. Murdering
me
. Who was
the real monster here?

Patrick shifted his attention back to me. I
didn’t see it, since my eyes were still refusing to open, but I
could feel his gaze upon me. “But it didn’t work. Your mother—yes
Elodie, I know you’re awake; your breathing changed a few minutes
ago—Your mother had you secreted away and then she ran. Oh she was
easy enough to track. She didn’t have your training, and she was so
weak from giving birth. I tranqed her, slit her wrists. I knew your
grandfather wouldn’t allow an autopsy or a tox screen. He didn’t
know what they might find, and it would bring up too many
questions. So her suicide was really easy to fake.”

Dad made a sort of whooshing noise, as if
he’d been punched in the stomach.

My brain went into overdrive. My mother
didn’t kill herself. She didn’t abandon me. Abandon
us.
This
psycho, sanctimonious, son of a bitch killed her.

“
You murdered my mother.”
My voice sounded faint and very distant to my ears. I still
couldn’t get my eyes to open.

“
Murder implies she was
human rather than beast. I put down a threat. It was a public
service, really.”

“
And what about Sawyer?
What do you call shooting him?” I demanded.

“
An unfortunate accident.
It was his mistake choosing to be your champion, something I’m sure
he’d never have done if he had known what you really
were.”

So he still didn’t know that Sawyer and his
father were like me.

“
You really have been so
much
trouble
. You’ve been the thorn in my side. The one that
got away. I lost my wife. I lost most of my career. But I couldn’t
fail
at this like I’d failed at everything else. It took me
years
to find you. Who knew that when I finally did it would
be because of some petty, schoolgirl vendetta on Facebook? Thank
God for modern technology and social media. I might never have
found you otherwise.”

Facebook? Amber’s petty, ridiculous smear
campaign is what lured this monster to my door?
My brain reeled
at the ludicrousness of that. But Patrick continued on, since
apparently he’d been waiting for quite some time for an audience
who could appreciate his villainous monologue.

“
Maybe you’re wondering why
I didn’t kill you outright. Well, the thing about it is that I had
to be
sure.
You weren’t like your mother. You weren’t like
the others that were described in my records. You should’ve lost it
when you found that boy amid all that blood and gore. But you
didn’t. So I had to find something else, something to test you, to
prove for absolute certain that you were your mother’s daughter.
I’m not a murderer, you see. I couldn’t go off killing girls, half
cocked on just a
hunch.
So then I sabotaged your car. It was
a risky move. No telling when that old clunker would finally kick
it. But that worked out perfectly. And you outran my truck. But
just barely. I
still
wasn’t sure. And then I
realized
. You’re a late bloomer. You haven’t actually
shifted yet. But judging by that display earlier, you’re not far
from it. So we’re just going to sit here, if you don’t mind, until
you shift. Then we’ll get this unpleasantness over
with.”

He’d killed my mother in human form. Why
should he have a problem with that? Then it occurred to me. “You’ve
never seen it, have you?

“
Seen what?”

“
Transition.” I managed to
crack my eyes open to slits, even though my eyelids weighed a
metric ton. It was just enough that I could see Patrick watching me
from the other side of the fire, a gun held loosely against his
thigh. “This isn’t about being
sure.
It’s about the science.
You want to study it. To know how it works.”

He inclined his head, his expression a
mixture of approval and disappointment. “It really
is
a
pity. You truly are a brilliant student. Yes, I’d very much like to
see the whole process. It’s a pity I can’t put you in a lab.
Imagine the genetic breakthroughs your DNA might hold.”

I was way more interested in imagining my
teeth in his throat, but for now it seemed wise to keep him talking
while my body continued to throw off the effects of the
tranquilizers. Chances were, even fully shifted, I’d never get free
of the ropes in time to attack him before he could put a bullet in
my brain. But if he was insisting on seeing the transition through,
he might be waiting a while. I was close, but this cycle of fevers
and body cramps could go on for days more before it finally
happened. Maybe someone would find us by then. Search and Rescue
was out there. When Dad didn’t check in, they’d know something was
wrong. Someone could find us.

I just hoped it wouldn’t be too late when
they did.

~*~

Sawyer

The radio in my pocket crackled to life. I
jolted and my hands fumbled to adjust the volume as Eileen’s voice
seemed to boom out. “Janet and Ken have been found. They are fine.
Repeat, they are a-okay.”

Well it was nice to know that my stranding
them without a map or compass hadn’t done them any lasting damage.
The tools certainly hadn’t helped me any. As it happens, I’m not
nearly as good at reading topographical maps as Elodie. My actual
starting point and where I thought I was starting on the map were
definitely not the same thing, so despite having the proper
navigational tools, it took me hours to stumble across Patrick and
Nate’s trail, evading two other search teams in the process.

According to radio chatter, no one had heard
from Nate or Patrick for three hours. This trail was several hours
older than that. If Patrick had a vehicle stashed, they could be
miles away by now. If he’d found Elodie—

I cut the thought off. There was no reason
to suppose he
had
found Elodie, even
with
Nate’s
help. She was smart and resourceful. I had to believe she’d holed
up somewhere to ride out transition. The best thing I could do
right now was follow the trail and rescue her father. Elodie would
never forgive herself if anything happened to him.

Dialing the volume back even more, I shoved
the radio back in my pocket. No need to draw attention to myself.
The sun was starting to set, shadows growing longer. I could hear
Eileen giving orders for the night. They weren’t stopping like last
night. Not with two of their searchers being added to the list of
the missing. I knew the searchers had changed their pattern, first
to try and find Janet and Ken, then to try and locate Nate and
Patrick. Since I wasn’t a hundred percent sure where I was, I
didn’t know if any of them was on an intersection course with me.
I’d just have to keep quiet, be careful, and hope I didn’t cross
any of them. The last thing we needed was more casualties in this
private war.

The wheeze disappeared by the time I reached
the creek. My first attempt at a full breath sent me into a
coughing fit that doubled me over until I’d hacked up the last of
the blood. It left a sour, copper coating in my mouth. I spat and
panted, catching my breath. And smelled smoke.

I didn’t think the other searchers would be
stopping to make campfires. But would Patrick? Wouldn’t he be
monitoring the radio as I was? Surely he wouldn’t actually stop and
make camp with the threat of being found. It was a stupid mistake
and Patrick was not a stupid man.

Still, I couldn’t risk
not
checking
it out.

It’d be faster to go as a wolf. But was it
safe to try and shift? My lung had reinflated, the wound closed. I
rubbed the heel of my hand over it. My chest still ached. There
could still be deep tissue damage. I sighed. Two feet it was.

The trail stayed mostly to the creek. I
stuck to the high ground, following the ridge above. I couldn’t be
sure, but I thought I was north of the cabin somewhere, upstream
from where I’d been shot, from where I last saw Elodie. I hoped she
was far away from here. Safe. But I knew better. The lingering
sense of dread in my gut confirmed it. Elodie would be out for
revenge. Unless she was fully incapacitated by transition, she
would try to track him. I just hoped I could get there first.