The One We Answer To: A Shifter MC Novel (Pureblood Predator MC Book 3) (2 page)

It’s a land of scorpions and snakes; cold-blooded creatures clinging to shadow.

I look back the way I came, into the mountain range. Usually the highest peaks are ringed in snow. Now they’re dry and barren and lit by flame.
 

Something touches my shoulder.
 

I startle, leap around, growl. There’s nothing there.
 

I feel it again. A soft touch. Warm. Inviting.
 

Lily
.

I bury my nose in my paws, trying to block out the strange word.

Odd, unwelcome feelings return: the taste of her blood when I marked her shoulder, the welcome pain when she marked me, the feeling of being inside her, so close we were almost one being—and then something shudders through me, a violent tearing deep in my bones and spirit and I’m howling in pain and fear because there’s nothing for me in that lost life, a life of pollution and disease and treachery and pain, a life cut off from this pure, elemental world of earth and sky—but the feeling of her body pressed close to mine, and her scent, her scent, an alpine meadow touched by morning sun, its been with me all this time, no matter how much I’ve tried to deny her she’s always here and now she’s drawing me back, the fucking bitch—

She’s why I’m running east into this blasted, sun-withered desert. To escape her, my
bloodmate
, the one I harmed and betrayed, the one who gave my life meaning, the creator and destroyer, and then I collapse in the sand, writhing and struggling to stay conscious, lost in poisonous memories and treacherous emotions—

How long has it been?

In my animal?

Days? Months? Decades?
 

A time of roaming free through the hills. A time of trying to forget.
 

But my shoulder pops and my legs grow long and thin and then something at the base of my spine snaps and I scream and howl and spit and claw at the earth because my bones are rearranging themselves, my skin stretching taut and thin and I watch in horror as my beautiful paws and sharp claws vanish and the silver-black fur on my arms recedes and not this, please no, not this, I can’t live that life again, a life of uncertainty and heartbreak and weakness, but then I’m holding my
hands
to my face, feeling my jaw snap and recede and my fangs flatten and I’m turning into this
thing
, this horrible misshapen aberration called a human, the cruelest of species, something I swore I would leave behind forever when my bloodmate decided I must die—
 

I press my face into the dirt and breathe deep, hot sand stinging my throat and searing into the burn on my chest and I try and bring the wolf back, try and remember how glorious it felt to hunt, free and alone, no regret or guilt or loss or uncertainty, only a single moment lived eternally, only the
now
…but he’s leaving me, the fucking bastard, even the wolf is turning on me, and I remember burying my younger brother Sorry after he died in shame, I remember my packmates turning on me when I failed them, but most of all I remember
her
, the feeling of her lips pressed to mine, how she smiled in a way that made damn sure I understood she saw through my bullshit, how natural it felt when we were together, the way she dug her fingernails into my back when we fucked, and the first words out of this goddamned cursed human mouth, which I whisper after spitting a mouthful of choking sand, are: “I remember you, Lily. I fucking remember
what
you are. And I’m going to keep on running.”

***

I shelter from the sun’s blistering heat in the shade of a scrubby juniper for the remainder of the day, swatting at biting red ants and trying not to dwell on how badly I need a black heart to feed on or what to do next.

Arron Arud. My human name like a prison, trapping me in a life I’ve learned to hate.
 

My animal fled east out of instinct. I see no reason to change course, bloodmate and lost pack and my fucking Harley rusting away in the Pureblood Predator clubhouse be damned. I’m not the first half-dead fool to venture naked and alone into the desert hoping to find an answer or two, and if I’m lucky maybe I’ll find a burning bush and return a fucking messiah and murder a certain mantis-wolf.

Vuk.
 

The First Fallen. The One Without Value.
 

Fuck Vuk.

The thought makes me laugh. But there’s madness and desperation in the sound, and my laugh quickly becomes a choking, miserable wheeze.
 

The burn on my chest is infected. Badly.
 

The strangest thing is not wearing the iron collar. I keep running my hands around my neck, marveling at the feel of my bare skin. I’d worn the collar so long it became a part of me. Feared what would happen if I was freed.
 

Feared my own animal, the one scrap of me that’s worth saving.

The air cools quickly as the sun descends, and when it dips behind the mountains I begin shivering and crawl out from under the juniper. Fires rage across the mountains behind, sending a vast column of smoke into the blue-black sky. The first stars emerge, and the fucked up Blood Moon. End of days? Maybe the doomers and whackos and preppers were right.

Not that it’ll do them any good.
 

They’ll just suffer longer.
 

I walk though the night. My feet blister and crack and bleed, and I’m too weak to do any healing. I try and drop fang a few times, hoping maybe the wolf decided to stick around.
 

Nothing.
 

Just little ol’ me, Aaron ‘One-Eight-Seven’ Arud, a weak-ass, heartbroken and half-dead Skin through and through. Love’ll do that. Drag you kicking and screaming through the dirt. Make you question who and what you are.
 

I worry maybe the wolf’s gone forever, goodbye and fuck you, and I can’t blame him, but the thought of living without him makes my stomach twist and turn.
 

He can’t be gone. Not forever. I’m weak is all.

 
In need of a Stricken’s black heart to feed on.

Soon the eastern desert scrubland gives way to rolling hills covered in brown grass. The only sound is my feet crunching through brittle grass. A few narrow ravines cut through the hills and at the bottom the air is cooler and a few trees, juniper and aspen mostly, cling to the banks of shallow dried riverbeds. The air is calm and still.
 

I lift my head and scent, but I might as well be breathing through a rag.
 

This human thing. It’s complete shit.

I decide to follow a narrow ravine that winds east. There’s a rough dirt road, more like a dirt track barely wide enough for an ATV, that parallels the ravine up on the ridge. This is cattle ranching country. Somewhere out here there’s a house. Maybe a few Skins to murder and rob.
 

Fuck it. These are end days. The First Fallen is Becoming.
 

A guy’s gotta do—

I round a sharp bend in the ravine and freeze. Twenty yards ahead the dirt track switchbacks down to the ravine bottom and winds along the shore of the riverbed. There, in the middle of the track, is a bobcat as large as a Rottweiler, pawing and scratching at the ground. It’s movements are hurried. Even frenzied. Like it’s possessed.
 

There’s no wind.
 

The cat doesn’t notice or scent me, or if it does it doesn’t care. Its fur is balding and spotty, like a dog with mange. It’s biting and gnawing at the dirt, scratching away, and the awful sound carries down the ravine.

Scritch-scratch.
 

Scritch-scratch.

The hair on my neck stands on end. I realize I’m standing out in the open like a dumbass, fully lit by the red moon. I eye the shadowed ravine bank. It’s only five yards away. But I’m still animal enough to know if I move the cat will hear me for sure.
 

I gotta laugh. Not long ago I’d have charged this little kitty and had him for lunch. Now I’m frozen in fear, not able to move or stay still. I try and drop my fangs and claws, hoping the fear will bring my wolf.
 

No dice. Fucker’s still playing hard to get.
 

The bobcat continues scratching at the ground. It’s
really
fucking interested in something. Dirt flies up from the hole. The cat has a stumpy little tail and pointed ears. If I was an idiot I might say its cute.

But its not. Its a predator.
 

Sick in the head, from the look of things. Driven insane by something.
 

And very, very dangerous.
 

Behind the cat the dirt track tunnels through a spindly aspen stand, and there, tucked tight against the side of the ravine, is an old, half-rotten miner or rancher’s cabin.
 

Might be clothes in that cabin.
 

Maybe even food and water.

Fuck sakes.
 

Slowly, carefully, I bend down and pick up two grapefruit-sized rocks. One’s for throwing, hopefully frightening the fuck out of the crazy cat and sending him scurrying off.
 

The other one’s for bashing its brains in if it charges.

I feel a bit better with a weapon in my hand.
 

It’s not a Glock, but it’ll do.
 

I take a long breath, still creeped out by the way the thing keeps pawing at the dirt.
 

There’s something unnatural about its movements.
 

Something desperate.

Then I take two long steps forward, putting me within striking distance, cock my arm back, and hurl the fucking rock.
 

Before the rock’s even left my hand the bobcat whirls at me, snarling and hissing, and when the moonlight hits its black fangs and glowing pale blue eyes you can bet your ass I wish I had that Glock—
 

“H
OPE
YOU
DON
’
T
feel as bad as you look, girl.”

I open my eyes to blackness.

Panic grips my throat. I’m blind.

I don’t know if the Dog God stole my eyesight or if my animal did it in her rage after I caged her. The details are blurry. Maybe that’s a good thing.
 

Either way…it sucks shitballs.
 

I sense Trish sitting beside me, muster a thin smile and the strength to say, “I feel
worse
than I look,” then listen to the sound of water dripping in the near distance. The air is cool and smells of bleach or industrial cleaning fluid. I have no idea where I am, and I’m too exhausted to care. Truth is I’m kind of shocked to discover I’m still alive. “Feels like…I got hit by a fucking asteroid,” I say, aiming for humor but instead sounding straight-up tired and afraid.
 

Aaron of the Mountain River.

My last memory of my bloodmate is the reek of his burning flesh.
 

I murdered him.
 

He deserved it.
 

“Water?” I croak.
 

Trish presses a bottle to my parched lips. I slurp greedily until Trish pulls the bottle away, tisking, telling me to take it slow.

“You want to talk about it?”

I shake my head no.
 

Trish presses her palm to my forehead. “You’re still burning up. I keep waiting for this fever to break.”

“Not sure it will.”

“No. Me either.”

“He
deserved
it,” I say, not really to Trish but just needing to hear the words spoken out loud.
 

“Yeah,” Trish says quietly.
 

“You don’t think so?”

“I think…a lot happened. I think—”

“Say what you need to say, Trish. You think I fucked up.” I close my eyes. No sense having them open if I can’t see. A bead of sweat drips down my forehead and over my cheek. I lift my hand and wipe it away as if it were a tear. The sheets beneath me are soaked. “Maybe I did. Fuck up.”
 

“We’re alone, Lil,” Trish says. “There’s no one. So if there’s anything—”

I bite my lip, afraid of the torrent of emotion threatening to break free. I don’t want to talk. About anything. I want to tell Trish to piss off. I want to sleep. Rest. But there’s so much…
bullshit
broiling inside. Working through my blood like poison. And maybe this sickness I feel? You know how what’s in our hearts and minds can manifest in the body? In actual physical illness? Maybe that’s what’s happening to me with the blindness and fever, and so I say: “I remember…you know? That first night? In the Wilds? How when he rode by…my world just stopped. Like someone hit pause. I remember thinking…ha! What a juvenile idiot. Cruising on that bike like he’s all that. Then he sharked me at pool. Asshole! And then…the shoot-up and everything else. It’s all been…boom! Boom! So fast. And I realized…when I found out what he did…to my mother? That I don’t even really
know
him. Right? I mean he’s a total fucking stranger. An outlaw biker Prez asshole. I guess I got carried away. By the
rush
. I just lost my center, you know?”

“Yeah. I get that, Lil. I see that.”

“But it says something.”

“About what?”

“About me.”

There’s a long silence. I’m roasting. My skin feels on fire. “Where are we? A fucking sauna? Is there a…fan or AC?” I say, my tone not friendly at all.

“No,” Trish says with a pause like she’s going to say more. Then she says: “What is it, Lil? What’s it say about you?”

“Fuck if I know.”

That makes me smile bitterly. Now I even
sound
like him sometimes. “It says I never had a center to begin with. Says I don’t even know myself.” I loose a quick, unhappy laugh. “Twenty-four years old and I don’t even know myself. Because if I did know who I am…I would never have put myself…or you…or my—”