Roxanne Desired (14 page)

Ariel smiled as she tipped her head at Ember. The gesture showed respect to Ember’s position as Alpha, and it also acknowledged that she was pleased with her answer. “I am truly grateful.”

We
pulled up in front of an old abandoned warehouse. The structure had broken windows wrapped around each one of its three levels. The large, jagged holes punched through the glass permitted me a clear view of the pure blackness that resided in its depths. An abandoned car sat off to the side of the building, rust and weeds accenting the steel lawn ornament. I focused my hearing on the inside of the warehouse. The only sounds I could pick up were the tap-tap-tap and shrill chirping of thousands of cockroaches and rats. The smell pouring from the place was grotesque; it reeked of urine and mold with an underlying scent of salt. We had traveled twenty minutes east, ending up here at this dilapidated building two blocks from the ocean, prime real estate being put to waste in my opinion.

“I’m not sensing anyone,” I commented.

Ember nodded and waved to her soldiers, her quick gestures instructing them to line up behind us.

“Why don’t you try that x-ray vision thing of yours?” Milo asked.

The long haired werewolf was standing two bodies down from me, next to Tegan, surveying the building and landscape. His sidekick, Mojo, was sniffing around the base of the building, disappearing one moment and popping up several feet away in the next. Mojo was more than just a little white furball. She was actually a trapped witch who was spelled to live a lifetime in a dog’s body. So far, all I had ever seen her do that would tip anyone off to who she really was was this vanishing act of hers. I was told that Tegan and Mojo could also communicate silently with one another. It was a witch to fellow witch thing.

“I suppose it wouldn’t hurt.” I shrugged.

I pushed away my surroundings and closed my eyes briefly, thinking only of any possible inhabitants residing in the building before me. At first, I registered nothing. No different colored outlines, no red beacons that would indicate the presence of any one of my pack mates. Then, a dawdling pulse of blue light flickered underneath the foundation of the structure. My eye-line flew down, instead of out and around the inside and upper floors of the building I had been originally scanning. I concentrated solely on where the basement or any underground dwelling could have been built. That’s when the flashes became more prominent. They began to multiply and take form into the shapes of bodies.

“Bingo,” I said, pulling out my 45 from its holster. “The vamps and werewolves are underneath the warehouse. And there are a lot of them.”

Nathan grinned. “I guess this means we have our work cut out for us.” He commented out loud to no one in particular.

“Don’t sweat it, Nate. I have your back.” Paige said, sending him a sly smile.

I resisted the urge to lift my gun and shoot the bitch close range in the head. Instead of acknowledging her obvious jab at me, I said, “We’ll need all the help we can get. Thanks for the back up.”

My comment took Paige off-guard. She shook her head and put her focus back on where it should have been in the first place, readying herself for entry to the building.

“We will enter in three waves,” Ember began to explain to everyone. “My group will enter from the front. You,” She said, pointing to a massive blond soldier with a scar that ran in a white puckered line across the bridge of his nose and farther down his thick neck, “Take five men and assemble around back. Look for any entry points. Stay together and listen for my signal to proceed.” Ember then addressed the rest of the wolves. “I need all of you to follow my team in. Spread out and keep to the shadows. You have permission to fire at will. Use any force necessary to keep our way clear as we make our way down into the belly of this beast.”

When Ember finished Collin spoke up. “Adelphi soldiers,” Half of the group’s heads jerked up in response to him. Collin narrowed his eyes at his men. “We have sworn to protect all known and nameless species of the supernatural kind. Tonight, your oaths will once again be put to the test.”All of the Adelphi wolves, at once, growled in approval.“We didn’t start the fight we find ourselves in today, but for the sake of the innocent, we will damn sure finish it. Be smart, move fast, and most importantly…”

“Protect the weak! Live and die with honor!” Collin’s soldiers yelled. Their voices boomed as one.

With a clear understanding of our orders, all of us moved forward. Combat boots crunched over gravel as we reached the building’s front entrance, coming to a stop side-by-side each other. I was the first to attempt to enter the building, and was taken by surprise when I stepped over the warehouse’s crumbling threshold. Where my boot rested on the entryway, cockroaches skittered out from beneath the cracked wood. Huge, three inch black insects ran over my laces. I cringed and resisted the urge to stomp the creepy critters into a puddle of tiny guts. As grotesque as that experience was, it was not what had me so mystified. My eyes were glued to my second boot, which was hovering in the air inside the building. I was remiss to complete my step onto the gleaming marble that covered the floor on the other side of the threshold. I threw my arm out to halt all the forward progress from the group. After I pulled my leg back, the vision of that shiny, brand-new flooring disappeared. Oil stained concrete, littered with all kinds of debris, was in its place.

“Is something wrong?” Nathan asked.

I took two steps back. Like a finely choreographed dance, everybody stepped back with me.

The aromas that corrupted the air were harsher, different from when I was right up on the entryway. I took another really good look around me. This time, I was searching for anything out of the ordinary, anything out of place. My eyes wandered over the uneven ground. It was made from nothing but pebbles and dirt, a desolate landscape that stopped about a hundred feet away. It ended abruptly, becoming a new site of fresh clean grass. That didn’t make sense. Come to think of it, an old, abandoned warehouse sitting alone out here on prime real estate surrounding by lush greenery and sand wasn’t logical at all.

“It’s like everything around us is a mirage,” I relayed to Ember. “None of it is real.”

Ember’s brows shot together at my proclamation. She tilted her head, giving her surroundings a thorough scan for herself. After almost tasting the air by sniffing it, her shoulders shrugged.

"It seems real to me,” she said.

"I don't know how I know, but I do. All this," I said, gesturing around us, "is an elaborate ruse."

“Oh I believe you. That super bionic eyesight of yours has never proved to be anything but accurate.” Ember turned to face Collin. “I think you should inform your men that they are heading into a trap.”

Collin pulled out his two-way, the dire situation his men were in registering in the way his face began to pale. The radio’s static screeched through the quiet as everyone held their breath, wondering if Collin would reach the tactical team in time, before the group ran headlong into unknown disaster.

“Ghost One, do you copy?” Collin released the call button and we waited. After about 10 seconds of dead air, Collin tried his men again. “Ghost One, come in. I need an update on your position asap.”

“Should we go behind the building and check on them?” I asked nervously.

The backs of the teams heads was my answer as I watched them take off around the building. Everyone had run but Nathan. He looked at me, his face awash with dread.

“This isn’t good.” He looked me deep in the eyes before gesturing in the direction everyone tore off in. “Be careful my love, and if you have any mercy for me at all, stay alive. I would be wrecked without you.”

He pulled me in hard against his solid chest, stole my breath with a pair of demanding lips that took everything from me. The way he drank me up, tasted me; it filled me with a passion that burned like wax being abused by a flickering flame. His arms loosened as he reluctantly let me go. My whole being was left dazed from the feel of his lips and then cold from the absence of them. My hand fluttered up, brushing against my bottom lip; my own touch a stark contrast from his satin one. After one more carefully placed kiss to the bridge of my nose, Nathan pulled his guns and turned around. I followed suit, filling my own palms to capacity with cold steel. Without thought for my own safety, only his, I followed the love of my life into battle.

***

“Holy shit.” I couldn’t stop the profanities from spilling from my gaping mouth. Out of the blue, large claws had pierced the back of my leather jacket. The large talons were using the jacket’s strong material to gain a sure hold on me while I was lifted into the air. Harsh wind began to slap me in the face, the sudden gust making tears stream from my eyes. I tried to swallow my disbelief, the taste of the ocean slipping down my throat in the process. I squinted through my blurry, streaked vision as I jerked my head to the side so I could look up and over my bunched shoulders. Two reptilian eyes the size of large boulders were staring back at me. My first instinct was to curl up and hide, to make myself as small as possible. But then I noticed what color those eyes were and I could’ve sworn that the Grand Canyon sized mouth filled with a set of straight, razor sharp teeth was actually curled up in a smile. Harek? He must have either read my mind or my thoughts because he nodded once at me before looking back out in the vast sky before him. My first trip by Dragon was a short one. Harek dropped me gently next to a copse of trees that lined the back of the warehouse then flew off behind the cover of the tall, thick branches. The helpful Dragon had saved me precious time by depositing me alongside Ember and the rest of my group. They were busy assessing the quickly brewing trouble at the back entrance of the building. I positioned myself next to them by taking a step back into the camouflage of the trees. I felt a nudge on my leg and looked behind me. Nathan had shifted into wolf and was now stalking behind the rest of us, keeping his eyes trained on the warehouse. He was ready for battle. I peered across the distance and caught sight of the Adelphi soldiers that we had lost communication with. A few of them had shifted into their wolf forms while the rest of them held guns trained on the windows and back entrance of the warehouse. Red eyes shone from the framed darkness and I could hear gurgled growls rumbling from behind the mirage of crumbling walls.

I felt a pull from the white wolves that so boldly held the frontline of attack against our enemies. My body tingled in response to it and I immediately shifted. As soon as my own white paws sunk into the damp grass, Nathan’s brown wolf stepped in front of me. Even though my body had been taken over by my beast, it still visibly trembled in response to him. We couldn’t talk out loud to each other, but I could clearly feel his emotions. He was anxious. Torn between his duty to follow his Alpha’s orders and stay by her side, or follow the demands of his heart, and me, into a battle he knew my calling as a white wolf was leading me into. My stomach burned at the thought of those wolves facing this threat without me. There was a reason why all known white wolves sought out and became Adelphi soldiers. It was their calling; a need deeply ingrained in the most powerful of all wolves born white, to protect the weaker of their species. It was how the whole pack system worked. A great Alpha ruled over their pack with compassion, protected them and their territories from all that would dare try to invade or cause their charges harm. So it made sense to me that a wolf, even more keen, more fierce, and stronger than an Alpha, would be pulled into doing the very same thing. Instead of leading a singular pack, however, the white wolves, the Adelphi, ruled over them all. When all of this was explained to me, nobody had been sure if I would ever feel the call to protect considering I was a sired white and not born of the rare breed of wolf warriors. All those questions were being answered as every part of me screamed to join my brethren.

Nathan’s eyes bore into mine. What I read in their depths was clear. He didn’t like what I was about to do, but I could tell he wasn’t going to move an inch to stop me from doing it. If I crossed this field and united myself with the white wolves, I would be making a declaration. I would be choosing a new way of life for myself. Essentially, I would be joining a new pack. My muzzle tipped up and over toward Ember. She had stopped talking and was watching me and Nathan intently. She knew what was about to happen just as well as I did. She nodded at me and smiled. With a wink from my sire and the Alpha of my old pack, I lovingly nudged my head against Nathan and took off across that length of dirt to join a group of white wolves; a group that, as sure as there was breathe in my lungs, would change me forever.