The One We Answer To: A Shifter MC Novel (Pureblood Predator MC Book 3) (13 page)

My two shadow-hunters are doing a fine job of killing a few of the less powerful Stricken. But more sprint out of the bar. At least ten by my count, and I have the feeling I haven’t even seen the worst of them yet. Some are already full-animal. Some are carrying serious-looking artillery. There are more than even the so-called One We Answer To can hope to handle.
 

I smile into the darkness.

Fuck it.
 

I’m ready to die.
 

My brother’s betrayal and death. Losing my pack…and worse, losing my friends. Nash and Mia and Lonny and even the stoner rasta Tate.
 

And then there’s Lily. My bloodmate.
 

It’s the stupid things I remember most. The way her lips curled into a sarcastic smile when she was being a smart-ass, which was often. How she held my hand. The hollow of her lower back. The smooth skin behind her knee and high on her thigh, and the way she looked at me when we fucked, her eyes wide and misted and glowing with desire—
 

Yeah. Fuck it.

I’ve lived a life.
 

Seen some shit. Been some places.
 

I’ve eaten fucking sushi.
 

I’ve even been in love.
 

I’m ready to die.

Live long enough and you begin to wonder what else the world has to offer. Think you’ve seen it all, experienced it all, felt it all. Then along comes the person you were meant to be with, and the world feels new. You’re like a kid, cruising around all wide-eyed. The world feels big again, full of potential and promise.
 

That’s what love does.
 

Recreates the world. Softens it.
 

Makes it fucking bearable.
 

Gives you hope.
 

Then you fuck it up.

Guess I should’ve stayed alone in the desert. It’s easy to be brave when you’ve turned your back on life. Easy to be righteous when the world isn’t fucking with you.
 

Every. Single. Day.
 

That’s why all the seers and messiahs and monks hole themselves up in caves and castles and go all hermit: it’s tough to live clean out here, in the muck and shit and mess, just trying to keep your head afloat and not betray the scrap of goodness each and every one of us has.
 

Yeah.
 

The monks and messiah’s can keep their self-righteous, holier-than-thou bullshit. Toss ‘em out here with the rest of us just trying to live our lives as best we can and see how long their fucking wisdom and purity lasts.
 

There’s no easy answers out here, and that’s the cold truth.

“What a fucking hero,” I say, sending my wolf away. My skin stretches as my bones morph into human form. I reach down, my blood-stained hands almost fully human, grip the turquoise amulet the Skinwalker gave me and think of Lily. She was right to try and murder me, and the thought makes the anger I’ve cradled in my heart since that night she tried to murder me falter and fade.
 

Even if she wasn’t right…I forgive her.
 

I crawl to the side of the truck, pop open the driver’s door. No keys, but it takes me two seconds to hotwire the thing.
 

The engine grumbles to life.
 

I secure the steering wheel with the seatbelt as bullets zip and ping around the cab, then bend the four-wheel drive gear shifter down so it’s depressing the gas pedal to the floor. The engine screams and whines, shaking the whole truck. Then I press the clutch down with one hand, reach over, and slam the truck into gear.

The truck’s tires spin deep into the dirt, and when they finally bite the truck leaps forward, straight at the biker bar and the douchebags coming for me. I roll out of the truck as it zooms across the parking lot, gaining speed.

Someone shouts a warning.
 

The bullets stop flying as the motherfuckers scatter.

I want to be dead when the Stricken feed on my heart. You hear that, world? I’m not asking much. Just fucking kill me. I don’t want to see my own heat beating in the night air.
 

I leap to my feet and race behind the truck, not quite as fast as I’d like because of the acid burning in my hip. My shadow-wolves chase down a few bikers as they flee.
 

The truck ploughs into a Stricken, a slow-moving lizard creature, and he flies over the cab and lands in the box. He’s stunned, shaking his head, his filmy-white eyes looking at me and blinking stupidly when the truck collides with the first few Harley’s, and as their gas tanks ignite and the fireball roars to burning orange I hear the sound of more Harley’s tearing into the parking lot behind me and I know I’m well and truly fucked, because it seems whoever runs the joint was smart enough to call for backup—
 

“W
E
HAVE
TO
run, Lil,” Trish says, and the exhaustion in my friend’s voice tells me she doesn’t have much more running left in her.

“No,” I say as the trucks and bikes zoom across the lawn toward the hedge we’re hiding in. “No more running. This time we fight.”

Even if it is my old pal Mia.
 

Especially
if it’s Mia.

“Your Skin friend speaks true,” Shiori says in a way that sends a shiver sliding down my neck. “I also believe we must run.”

I might not like the moon-faced chick, but she’s my packmate, my sister if you believe the legends, and so it’s up to me to figure out a way to lead her.

I reach inside myself, calling the creature. She hisses and spits and stalks close. She smells the same black blood I do. I wish I was wrong about the woman who now calls herself Admah being my old biker friend Mia. I didn’t care much for the snarky bitch, but I don’t truly want to see her killed, and I know if I loose my creature she’ll die for certain.
 

My creature is loyal to one thing only: herself.
 

After that, a distant second, is her pack.
 

The rest of the world, Skin and Stricken and Pureblood, mean nothing to her.

My claws lengthen and drop. My mouth widens into the silver she-wolf’s wide, fang-lined jaws. There’s an odd, tingling itch beneath my shoulder blades as my wings press through my skin. My clothes smolder and burn as my skin begins heating—

“Wait, Lil,” Trish says. “There’s something…”

I hear a loud whooshing sound directly overhead, then a horrible crashing wave of sound.
 

Cawing.
 

The New World Order scream at one another, and then there’s a tremendous eruption of gunfire. I duck and fling myself deeper into the hedge, believing they’re firing at us, but Trish holds her position behind me and I slam into her.
 

“The black vultures,” Trish stammers, “they’re coming in low over us and attacking the convoy. They used the house and hedge to hide their approach.”

“We gettin’ real lucky, boss lady,” Wes says as the vultures shriek and scream and the machine guns blaze. There’s flurry of quick popping punctuated by a boom so loud the sound makes the ground beneath us shake.
 

“What the fuck is
that
?” Trish says, scanning through the hedge.
 

“Anti-aircraft, from the look of it,” Wes answers. “The New World Order got its hands on some beauty firepower. Probably raided a the military base.”

Yeah.
 

That sounds just like Mia.
 

And leave it to Mia to lead a pack of fucked-up survivalists and asshole ex-bikers into the end of the world.
 

She’ll go out fighting, that one.

A bullet wings through the hedge, inches overhead.

“I’m a gunna leave you now, boss lady,” Wes says. “No matter how special you is, I’m still a broke-down junkie and these bullets’ll kill me right quick—”

“Wes is right,” Trish says. “They’re distracted. Now’s the best time to make a break for the house.”

“They’ll scent us out,” Anik says.

“Maybe,” Trish says. “But lets cross that bridge. Right now we’re gunna die—”

“Lily look out!” Anik shouts.

Something smashes through the cedar hedge and straight into me, slamming me backward, and from the scent of him I know it’s a Skin. He screams something unintelligible and slams his fist into my face. Fireworks of colored light explode behind my eyes, and then I have him by the neck, my claws digging into him, and he’s pawing and scraping at me and then there’s a wet tearing sound as I rip out his throat and he goes limp in my hands.

I lower the Skin’s body to the ground.
 

No one says a word, but everyone’s breathing quick.

Waiting for me to make the call.

“Are they coming?” I ask, trying to see through the hedge.
 

“No,” Trish says. “That chickenshit fled the vultures.”
 

Another shattering boom, then the wrenching shriek of a vulture dying and the smell of black blood flowing heavy into my nose.
 

“That gun fucking cut the bird in half,” Wes says, half whistling between his teeth.
 

“I will feed on a beating black heart,” Shiori says, her voice buzzing and broken as she inches through the hedge toward the battle.

I latch my hand onto her wrist and say, in my most commanding tone, “You will stay here. Close.”
 

Something lands on my arm. Bites into me.
 

The sting is immensely painful, and nearly forces me to release Shiori.
 

The fucking bitch just bit me.
 

Her
alpha
.

“Do that again and I swear I’ll tear your pasty fucking head off,” I snarl.

Another wasp lands on my arm. Then another. And another.

“Shiori…” Anik warns.
 

I hold tight to Shiori’s wrist. Her skin wriggles beneath me. A million insects buzz inside her, begging to be freed. Only a few yards away I hear Mia screaming commands at her men.
 

The snake-bitch has it easy, leading Skins.
 

“Get your fucking bugs off of me,” I say, my voice perfectly even.
 

The wasps remain for a long moment, brushing their hooked legs against my skin, ready to sink their stingers into me if their master bids them to.
 

Then, one by one, they lift away.

“Good,” I say to Shiori. “Now. You
will
stay close. Understand? We’re all hungry. But this pack hunts together. Feeds together.”

Shiori says nothing, looses a frustrated, petulant little sigh that makes me think of a spoiled teenager, and then I know how my Risen sister needs to be led: like a vain, self-important movie star, left alone until she feels neglected then showered with praise and attention.
 

Just my luck, to have a high-maintenance princess for a packmate.
 

I force myself to release Shiori’s wrist without snapping it in two, then summon my nicest voice and say, “Shiori? What do
you
think? Do we wait for nightfall to travel, or leave now?”

“Only a fool travels by day,” Shiori says, sounding completely uninterested.
 

“Fine,” I say. “Then it’s settled. We hold up in the house.”
 

The buzzing sound quiets.

I smile inwardly.
 

My little princess sister likes feeling appreciated—

A horrible wail from beyond the hedge makes me shudder and look at the battle raging only fifty yards away.
 

The New World Order are winning. Five of seven vultures are down. Some of the men are running at the vultures who’ve fallen. Throwing that strange orange powder on them, then leaping on the vultures when they burn. Cutting off their heads.

A part of me wants to call out to Mia. She could be a valuable ally…but I remember how much she despised me. Her jealousy. No. She’ll never fight beside me after what I did to Aaron, and I realize that one day I’ll likely have to murder her.

But hopefully not today.

“On three we run to the house,” I say over roaring gunfire and screams of the dying. “One…two…”

“They’re here Admah!” Wes screams, leaping from the hedge and racing at Mia and her New World Order. “They’re here right here I brought them to you they’re strong they’re animal freaks please Admah I found them I’ll take the vow I need to—”

Machine guns pop. Wes’s voice stops abruptly.
 

“Shot him,” Trish says without a trace of emotion. “Blew his head off. Serves him right.”

“I knew he’d betray us,” Shiori sneers.

“C’mon, Lil,” Trish says, pulling me from the hedge.
 

I grip Pimniq’s hand and step out into the small lawn that leads to the suburban mansion. The sun glows warm against my face as we race across the lawn, then pause at the door while I try the handle.

It’s locked.
 

“Shoulder it open, Anik,” Trish says.
 

“No!” I say. “It should look…like it hasn’t been tampered with. Shiori? Would you?”

“What?”

“Fly inside and open it?”

Shiori sighs. Christ. I feel like a babysitter, and then I remember Aaron saying something similar about leading his pack. I never knew how exhausting it could be, and suddenly a rush of anger and resentment slams into me.
 

I didn’t ask for this. Fuck these people.
 

I can’t lead them, and I don’t even know what I’m leading them
to
.

This isn’t even my war. Maybe I’m spending my last few hours alive trying to wrangle a bunch of thankless freaks into doing something that won’t end up helping anybody.