The One We Answer To: A Shifter MC Novel (Pureblood Predator MC Book 3) (43 page)

In moment’s I’m only me.

Lily Thompson.
 

Aaron hurries to my side.
 

“What, Lil? What did you see? Tell me—”

I’m interrupted by a piercing caws and shrieks and howls and hisses. There. Flying low over the flaming treetops, is a massive flock of black-feathered carrion vultures, and beneath them, sprinting through the burning forest, unharmed by the intense heat, is an army of blood-hungry Stricken.

Not dozens. Not even hundreds. Thousands.
 

I close my eyes. It’s too late.
 

It doesn’t matter.
 

The One War has begun again.
 

A burning treetop whistles through the canopy overhead. Aaron piles into my shoulders, forcing me out of harm’s way as the tree slams into the earth and explodes in a fireball of swirling embers and the red lightning continues crashing down—

Aaron growls when he hears the Stricken army advancing. His muscles tighten. His jaw tenses. His eyes harden. I know he’ll fight. It’s the difference between him and me. He’ll fight to survive even when there’s no hope, and I stand stunned as my bloodmate Aaron Arud, the One We Answer To, raises his head and summons the wolf and howls for his pack, and for a moment my heart is buoyed by his courage, no matter how insane it might be, because he’s a stubborn, reckless fool but it’s the ones like him who manage to live on—

The Stricken hear Aaron’s howl and increase their pace. They’re running through the blackened forest, shifting shapes and shadows, fangs and claws and spiked tails lit by flame, an army of misshapen creatures doomed to live my brother’s curse, offspring of the Atrocity, born twisted and foul through no fault of their own, and for a second I actually
feel
for them, I pity them, and somewhere in there, somewhere in that sympathy and forgiveness there’s an answer, maybe a way to end an endless war—

Aaron’s shadow-wolves leap onto the closest Stricken, a horse with the spitting head of a snake, then a snorting bull with a set of crab pinchers sprouting from its back. There’s the sickening sound of flesh being torn from bone and strangled cries as the wolf-shadows tear their enemies apart and then I’m on my feet while Aaron hurries me through the woods. The fire’s left a single unburned path for us to follow, but we’re cut off from the Pureblood Predator MC.

Aaron’s face is set in grim determination. He’s holding me by the waist, steadying me as I stumble through the forest. I catch my foot on a branch and fall flat on the ground. Aaron lifts me, places me on my feet, shouts to keep moving, and when I fall a second time he lifts me over his shoulder like I weigh nothing at all and looses a powerful roar and continues sprinting through the woods, following a nearly straight line of unburned forest and I have just enough coherence to realize we’re headed due north before a Stricken, a half-goat half-lion monstrosity, leaps out from behind a tree and slams into us.
 

I’m tossed to the ground and smash my head against a tree root.

For a second I’m blind with pain.

Shaking my head, trying to stay conscious—

I look up to see my bloodmate tear off the Stricken’s head and fling it into the raging fire. A second Stricken emerges from the flames, then a third, then a fourth. They circle around us, grinning and licking their fangs.
 

I fling a rock at one of them, and while it ducks one of the shadow-wolves takes it down. Aaron runs at two more, catches a reptile creature in the throat with his claws, nearly severs its head with a single blow.

Aaron’s wolf is half freed.
 

He’s moving faster than I’ve ever seen.

But still more Stricken leap at us. I drop enough claw to defend myself, crouch low as a shrieking monkey-bitch pounces at me, then raise my clawed hand hard into her midsection. The bitch yelps, then blood pours from her mouth and she falls at my feet and I plunge my hand through her chest and tear out her beating black heart and bring it to my lips, hoping the feed will strengthen me—

“Lily!” Aaron screams. “Now!”
 

He’s gesturing at the unburned track. I finish the Stricken heart, run after him and shrug off his offer to carry me. Aaron’s shadow wolves race along beside us, protecting our flanks. Flames singe my hair. I’m choking in smoke and withering heat, eyes watering, barely holding on—

 
A few hundred yards later we reach the road. The forest fire’s burning on either side, a massive mountain of flame, and spinning in a maelstrom of embers and fire, a thousand feet overhead, is a flock of black vultures so large it obscures half the sky.
 

Nash and Blue and Trish leap off the road when they see us and attack the Stricken giving chase.
 

The MC opens up with a wall of artillery they stole after murdering the New World Order. Anti-aircraft guns blaze, lighting the night with stark white flashes and thundering noise.
 

Aaron and I leap up the road embankment.
 

When I hit the bubbling-hot pavement I risk a look behind, into the burning forest.
 

The terrain slopes down from the road, allowing a clear view across a broad valley. At first I blink, not believing my eyes.

The Stricken army stretches far into the hills, mile after mile, and here, on the road, the Pureblood Predator MC is making a brave but hopeless stand. I watch as Blue unleashes the Kodiak grizzly and butchers a half dozen Stricken. Nash has a sawed-off shotgun in each hand. He’s striding into the monsters, screaming commands as buckshot flies in every direction. Tate’s dark-scaled Komodo springs up the from the grass to devour a winged jackal.
 

“There’s too many,” I say, gripping Aaron’s arm as he grabs a M16 from another biker and makes to leap into the battle. “We’ll never defeat them. Not like this.”

“It was
always
like this,” Aaron scowls. “Pack against pack. Animal against animal. Strong against weak.”

But his eyes betray him. He knows I’m right.

The world upended.

“That path, Aaron? The unburned forest? My brother was
leading
us somewhere.”

“Then we stay right the fuck here.”

“No,” I say, tightening my lips. “I know where I need to go. I’ve known all along. Come with me.”

Aaron looks into my eyes. Hesitates.
 

He doesn’t trust me.
 

Maybe he never will.
 

But he turns to his crew and screams, “Fall back, motherfuckers! Fall back and follow me!”

Then we’re on his Harley, the engine scalding hot between my legs.

“You sure this gas tank’s not gunna explode?” I say as Aaron throttles the bike wide open and kicks it into gear. The back tire digs into the heat-softened pavement, spins and smokes for twenty feet, then finally sticks and rockets us forward.

Aaron shrugs, screams over his shoulder: “Wouldn’t mind if it did.”

Truth is, neither would I, because as we ride away from the prowling Stricken army the black carrion-bird cloud descends toward us, led by a massive horned vulture I’m too heartbroken to name—

M
Y
SWARM
CARRIES
Pimniq through the clouds.

Never have I felt more free.

More certain of my choice.
 

We fly south, past burning forests and ruined cities and barren fields. Pimniq struggles against my swarm until she grows exhausted. Her bullet wounds heal. I keep her entire body smothered, only permitting her breathe through a small hole in my swarm. Sometimes her skin ripples as she tries to summon the white raven, but then I command my wasps to sting her and after a while she relents.
 

Day turns to night.
 

We fly under the Blood Moon’s beautiful glow.
 

An image of the Pyramid of the Sun burns in my mind’s eye.
 

The sacrifices heaped below. The blood moat running deep.
 

Anik’s animal is following us. Tornarsuk is slower than me, but he’s stubborn. He will not rest until his sister is safe.
 

Poor Anik. How a good heart betrays us.

Soon the land turns red and brown and trees give way to odd spiked plants I can’t name. The air become dry and hot.

I navigate by instinct and my antennae interpreting earth’s magnetic fields. Then a breeze carrying a familiar scent blows in from the west.
 

The ocean.

The ocean sticks in my mind.
 

The wings of my swarm make a loud, high-pitched buzzing sound as I fly higher, then bank west toward the ocean.

Something has changed.

My alpha is calling.

***

Soon we come to land’s end. A white sand beach stretches below, and off in the distance, nearly invisible against the turquoise blue horizon line, is a ship.

The
Guardian
.

I send a few of my swarm ahead to make sure the Guardians are not trying to trap me. It was the Guardians who named me a Hopeful. Filled my veins with poison to ward off my swarm. The Guardians slit my throat when August Lerrick commanded them.
 

My swarm throbs with kill-lust.

Perhaps my alpha has summoned me here to murder those responsible for my suffering. Perhaps this is a gift, a reward for my loyalty.

The ship is anchored several miles off the coast.
 

The water shines aquamarine. My swarm flies low over the waves, a buzzing black cloud large enough to swallow the sun.
 

I am the Sun Smotherer. The All Consuming.

The first few wasps fly over the ship’s rail. At first I think the deck is deserted. Then I see a familiar structure, and my heart leaps with joy.

A pole pyramid has been built in the middle of the ship deck.

Standing inside the pole structure is a handsome, regal man in long burgundy robes.
 

One of the Three Priests of the Gate?
 

I gather my swarm over the ship deck.
 

The man turns, opens his arms in welcome, and smiles.

It is not a Priest.
 

It is an enemy. The man who stood beside the failed alpha Lily. The man who was killed by the Stricken when we were underground, escaping the hospital.
 

Connor Lerrick.
 

My furious buzzing swarm rises into the sky.
 

Connor doesn’t move. Just smiles at my swarm, his arms open wide.

I form my wasps into a narrow point, then descend at him.
 

Connor stands tall. That arrogant smile.
 

He should be afraid. He’s seen what I’m capable of.
 

I’ll paralyze him, then strip the meat from his bones while he watches.

But as my first wasps get near something strange happens.

One by one they reach the pole pyramid and fall to the ground, and in moments the pyramid is ringed in a black mound of dead wasps—

“Welcome home, Shiori,” Connor Lerrick says while my swarm falls dead around him.

My wasps respond with a furious high-pitched buzz.
 

“Your brother and I have been waiting,” Connor says.

My brother? My alpha?

“Liar!” I say from within the swarm.

“Come down here, Shiori,” Connor says, his voice soft and soothing. “I have a gift for you.” Connor gestures to one of the lifeboats. There’s a naked man tied to it. Bleeding from many small wounds. It takes me a long time to recognize him.

Priest Gabriel.

“My father created the Guardians,” Connor says. “Wrote the ridiculous cult biblical story they told their captives.” Connor laughs at Priest Gabriel. “You remember it, right, your holiness? Azazel and the Absent and the Vessels and all that? My father was very proud of that story. Said creating a cult is like advertising a new kitchen appliance. It’s all about getting people to believe they can’t live without what you’re selling.”

Connor steps out of the pole pyramid. I land one of my wasps on his arm. He stares at it, then looks into the swirling swarm and says, “My father tasked the Guardians with finding and controlling any potential Risen. Used those the Guardians captured in breeding experiments. He wanted to prevent the First Fallen from Becoming.” Connor flashes me a thin smile. “After my father’s
unfortunate
death I decided…a change of management was in order. Why waste such a valuable resource? Like you and I, the Guardians of the Gate are destined to be reborn.”

I hesitate.

Connor casually brushes my wasp off his arm. “The Guardians will become the First Fallen’s Skin army. Cannon fodder in the One War.”
 

Priest Gabriel looks into my swarm. His eyes. A lovely green. How I longed for him to hold me when I was a lonely Hopeful. How I prayed to feel the touching of lips with him.

“This pig was going to carve out your eyes, Shiori,” Connor says. “He was going to impregnate you. Then murder you.”

Priest Gabriel shakes his head. Stares at Connor, then at my swarm. Strains against his bindings until his skin opens.
 

I land a wasp on Priest Gabriel’s neck.
 

Bite him.
 

The Priest flinches.

He’s a Skin. Weak. Worthless.
 

“Come on down, Shiori,” Connor says, trying to coax me close.
 

I don’t trust Connor. But I don’t fear him.

My swarm descends slowly. I set Pimniq down in the corner of the ship and keep her smothered. Then I focus my will on calling my human form. She feels distant. Almost…gone.
 

My wasps swirl into roaring black tornado, the wind so strong it sets the massive ship listing left and right.