The Lord of Near and Nigh: Shifter MC Novel (Pureblood Predator MC Book 2) (45 page)

Lily looks at Trish’s unmoving body lying sprawled in the moist grass. “Let go of me!” she screams, pounding her fists against my chest. “You fucking bastard! Let me go!”

“No way,” I say, holding my bloodmate tight and taking a few steps away from August, although I’m not sure what good it’ll do. “I’m never letting go, Lil. Never.”

“I need my creature!” Lily sobs. “I fucking
need
her and she…she isn’t here.”

“Yes,” August says, inspecting Lily with a vicious gleam in his eye. “That usually comes as quite a disappointment.”

I recognize August’s expression. Felt it on my face every time I close in on a kill.
 

He’s enjoying this.
Feeding
on our weakness.
 

“You fucking asshole,” Lily snarls at August. “This is what you wanted! You drew me here with the scent of my packmates. You made Connor believe I was the All Encompassing. Made him believe I could defeat you and rid us of the animals.”

“My son? He believed what he wanted to believe. Crafted his own version of history. Despite what was right in front of his eyes, he chose nonsense over truth because it gave him hope. A costly error, I’m afraid.”

“I’m Sorry, Lil,” Connor says, finally shaking off his father’s punch and managing to stand. “I thought…you would overcome him. Thought you’d still be able to summon your creature in his presence.”

“You thought
wrong
,” August says in a dismissive tone. “You always were a letdown, Connor. Our children. We love and raise them, dreading the day they disappoint. Because inevitably they
do
disappoint.”
 

August walks to Trish, hovers his boot heel over her throat, stares at me and Tate and says, “The Skin bitch is breathing. If taken to hospital she may yet live from that belly wound. But her life ends if I’m attacked again. I promise you that. Are we
clear
?”

“What do you want?” I snarl.

“Same as you, Aaron,” August smiles. “I want the world to return to how it was. I want stability. Order. Balance. I want to know right from wrong.”

August motions toward the helicopter. The side door slides open and three naked figures are thrown onto the grass, each bound hand and foot. Two of them look small enough to be children. “I’ve crafted a very comfortable life from this world of greed and hunger and sadness.” August points out over the water. The orange glow of flaming buildings is visible in the distance. “This…end of days nonsense. Superstition and idiocy. Chaos and looting and anarchy. It’s costing my enterprise an extraordinary amount of money.”
 

“You’re not him,” Lily says, her voice rough with hatred. “Connor was wrong. I don’t know what you are, but you’re not
him
.”

August sets his boot heel on Trish’s throat. “Remember what I said, Lily. I will think less than nothing of grinding my heel through this Skin bitch’s throat.”

“You ran with him,” Lily says. “You were close. But you’re not my brother. Not Vuk.”
 

I don’t know if she’s guessing or can enter August’s mind, but her words make the old bastard’s cheeks flush red.

“Yes, I ran with your brother. Stood beside him. Guarded his back as he murdered your father and committed the Atrocity. Marshaled his packs during the One War.”
 

“He didn’t want to rule an empire,” Lily says. “But you did.”

“Your brother was
incapable
of ruling,” August snaps. “He was a brute. A feral animal though and through. Compelled by base passions. But…he was powerful. Like your animal…and those of your siblings.” August gestures to the captives struggling in front of the helicopter, then smiles and continues: “Powerful beyond imagining. Such power is…unnatural. It upsets a sacred balance. It cannot be permitted. When your brother murdered his father to ascend to alpha…it was a shock to all of us, but it was within natural law. But when he took his mother for a mate? Intolerable. I believed the One War would dethrone him forever. I was wrong.”

“You wanted to rule after him.”

“Yes. And I
do
,” August says, sweeping his hand toward the mansion. “I rule far more than a few half-starved, mangy animals in an insect-infested wood. The Skins are weak, but they’re fruitful and industrious. Go forth and multiply, their story says…and they have! They’ve built more than our kind has in a millennia on this earth—”

“They’ve
raped
this earth,” I growl.

“I won’t argue,” August sniffs. “It’s useless trying to change your mind, Aaron. I know a disaffected extremest when I see one.”

“You’ve grown too fond of this life,” I say, gesturing at the sparkling mansion behind me. “Its shallow rewards.”

“Perhaps,” August says with a shrug. “But at least I know where my loyalties lie.”

August lifts a hand toward the helicopter. Three robed men hop out, lift the hostages to their feet and shove them forward. The chopper’s searchlight is blinding, and it’s not until the hostages are nearly beside us that I see the group clearly.

“Fucking hell,” I mutter, meeting Lily’s horrified gaze. I recognize those velvet burgundy robes. They’re the same as the man on the ship was wearing when I rescued Lily.

“It’s you…” Lily stammers, “…those girls? On the
Guardian
? Murdered. Tortured.
You
abducted me.”

August smiles. “My Guardians have hunted the Risen for centuries. And thanks to my son’s idiocy and a little gentle convincing on my part…he was fooled into scheming to wake your creature. He was fooled, in truth, into murdering you and yours. The Fallen will never Become without three of his packmates alive to summon him. I intend to make sure he never rises.”
 

Connor moans, throws his hands over his face and collapses to his knees. “You lied…father? You lied about…being the Fallen?”

“You should be grateful, my son,” August sneers. “You’ve tried your best to be an abject failure. Now you will live in history.”

Rich bitch got punked. By his daddy.

That’s gotta suck.

“Don’t hurt them, August,” Lily pleads. “They have nothing to do with this! We want the same things, you and I! We want the Fallen gone forever—”

“Not only the Fallen,” August says. “All the Risen. All of
your
kind.”

“We’re a threat to you,” Lily says.
 

August shrugs, then gestures at me. “I didn’t count on your pet dog sniffing you out and rescuing you from the
Guardian
. It’s remarkable, isn’t it? The awful circumstances in which love can bloom? Here we are at the end of the world and you two are determined to mate as if you have a future. Some might call that romantic. I call it…desperate.”

That should send my shoulders bunching and my fangs dropping, but there’s only a hollow pit where my animal once lived.
You’ll have your time,
I promise him, even though I know he can’t hear me.
You’ll have your kill.
 

 
One of the hostages is in his early twenties, his broad sunburned face bloody and swollen and bruised. The second is a tiny, pale-skinned Asian woman with long straight black hair and bony, slumped shoulders. She’s also been beaten. The third is a child, a young girl, with the same dark skin as the man. All three are bound and gagged. The man’s eyes are blazing and furious, but the Asian girl keeps her glance rooted at her feet.

“Meet your brother and sister, Lily,” August says, stepping away from Trish and approaching the hostages. “Your Risen packmates. Children of the Primal Pair. The man is named Anik. An Inuit from Canada’s far north. Quite a magnificent creature, when he’s not trapped in his wretched human skin. Rumored indestructible in his animal form…although I hope we know enough by now not to place too much stock in rumor. And the shy girl? She’s Shiori. A personal favorite. You should see her stinger. Quite impressive. The child is a pleasant surprise,” August says, running his long, clawed fingers under the girl’s chin. “I believe they call you Pimniq? Am I right, child? Sister of Anik?”

Pimniq squirms and struggles against the two robed creeps pinning her elbows.

“Two are missing, of course,” August says. “The infamous Vuk, still defeated and withering away in the Bloodless Land. And a third brother who’s developed a rather unseemly god complex—”

“Oh no,” Lily moans. “Please August no not the child she doesn’t deserve she’s only—”

“I’m sorry you won’t have an opportunity become reacquainted,” August says, nodding at the robed men. “There is only one way to keep Vuk the Fallen caged in the Bloodless Land where he belongs. He must be robbed of what woke him. His Risen pack. His
family
.”

“No…” Lily whispers. “No…”

“Father!” Star cries. “Stop this…madness. Please stop!”

August shakes his head. “Leadership demands sacrifice, my child. Let today be a lesson for the both of you.”

The three robed men step forward, slip gleaming hunting blades from sheaths hidden beneath their burgundy robes, and quickly slit the hostage’s throats ear to ear.
 

Red blood sprays across the yard, glowing too bright in the helicopter’s glaring spotlight.

The executed prisoner’s eyes glaze over as they collapse onto the lawn.

Lily shrieks, and all can think is how grateful I am she can’t summon her animal, because I know she’d slaughter us all.
 

T
HEIR
RED
BLOOD
warm on my face.
 

Blood of my brother and sister.
 

Blood of my blood.

A black haze descends over my vision, and then I’m tearing free of Aaron’s restraining grip and rushing at the monster August Lerrick. I slam into him, hoping to drive him down, hoping to strangle him, but it’s like running into a concrete wall.
 

August wraps his arm around my chest and nicks his claws against my windpipe. “Don’t worry, sweet dear. In a moment you’ll join your packmates in darkness.”

His claws pierce my throat.
 

Then a tremendous booming sound and August staggers backward. Black blood cascades down my shoulders, soaking me. The scent floods my nostrils and then she’s with me, still distant but there, and I leap from August’s arms and whirl to face him.

The top half of his head is missing.
 

Blown right the fuck off.
 

August’s eyes are wide with shock, but he’s still standing. He slowly lifts a hand up, gingerly touches his blood-slick hair, then slips his fingers across his shattered skull.

Mia emerges from the hedge behind us, cradling a high-calibre hunting rifle.

“You wretched
animal
,” August shrieks, seeing Mia. “You filthy fucking—”

“Snake?” Mia says, her slitted yellow eyes shining. “Bet your saggy old man ass.”

Mia raises the rifle and fires again, catching August in the shoulder, just above his heart. My animal screeches inside me, her fury erasing all restraint.
 

August’s injuries are weakening his power.

“Do you feel her, Lily?” Mia asks. “Let the bitch loose.”

She’s with me. They all are. My pack.

There might still be time.

The robed men whip out handguns as they whirl on Mia.
 

Flickering orange-red flashes light up the night.
 

Mia leaps behind a concrete pillar while Tate and Aaron pile into the Guardians, their fists hammering down. They might not have their animals but they’re still mean motherfucking outlaws.

Aaron catches one of the robed men with a haymaker that snaps the guy’s neck. Tate knees another in the balls, then clasps his hands together and brings them down on the back of the guy’s head, dropping him. The third robed man has time to lift his handgun at Aaron before his face explodes.
 

Mia’s stepped out from the behind the pillar, holding the raised rifle.
 

“Damn,” she says. “I wanted that them to die slow.”

Aaron laughs: a fierce, barking sound that quickly becomes a guttural howl.
 

August’s injury has weakened his ability to silence our animals. But it won’t last long—he’s healing faster than I imagined possible, the wound in his head already growing closed.
 

“This is not how I end,” August screams, and as his shoulders bulk and fine silvery-red fur grows on his face and his jaw distends. Then his son Connor crashes into him, driving August to the ground. The two roll across the lawn, each half-formed wolves, snarling and biting, their claws and fangs raking each other open, slashing and stabbing so fast I can hardly tell the two apart.
 

Star stands over them, her eagle beak and talons fully formed, eyes bright, slamming her sharp beak into her father whenever she can, tearing the flesh from his bones.
 

We surround them, Aaron and Tate and Mia and I, while the children murder their father.
 

Aaron grabs Mia’s arm and points to the helicopter.
 

The engine’s kicked on, the blades whirring with increasing speed.

“Asshole coward,” Mia says, firing a round into the cockpit. There’s a scream, barely audible over the whirring blades, then the chopper jerks to the right and tips over. Its blades slice into the lawn, sending a shower of stinging dirt across us, then with a high-pitched squeal of metal being torqued in ways it was never meant to the blades tear free and slice through the air over our head. For an instant the helicopter looks about to settle back onto the lawn, then it lifts in the air and smashes into the ground. There’s a hiss, then a blinding flash of light and heat as the helicopter explodes, sending shrapnel zipping past my head.

In the light of the burning helicopter I look down and see Connor flat on his back, eyes closed, his throat wide torn open. August is kneeling over his daughter, feeding on her beating black heart.