The Trail Back (18 page)

Josh started to thrust inside her and he felt so good that she sighed and relaxed, the burn in her ass turning to a thrill of pleasure. Josh kissed her as he started to thrust deeper and her whole body hummed.

“Here I come, sweetheart,” Shane said. Abbie was lost, lost to sensation. The hard muscles of her mates pressed against her skin, their hard cocks pressed deeply inside her. She was stretched so tight, the glide of their cocks filling her and pleasuring her like nothing before ever had. They made love to her together, each filling her in turn. She was connected to them, surrounded by them, and she had never felt anything so wonderful.

Josh withdrew from their kiss and lowered his head to his mark on her neck. “Come for us, Abbie.”

He slowly slid his sharp canines painlessly into her flesh, his tongue licking at her skin. She exploded, rubbing her clit against Josh’s pubic bone as they both thrust deeply inside her a few more times, then stilled as they found their own release.

She’d lost the strength in her arms and legs and Josh and Shane had to help her to stand as they withdrew from her. “We’re doing that again, too,” Abbie said.

“Yes we are,” they both said.

She kissed Josh’s chest, then Shane’s, as they washed her. When the water finally grew cold, she was dried and carried to bed by Josh. He crawled in with her and pulled her tight to his chest. She rested her head on his shoulder as Shane lay close to her back.

“I don’t want to sleep,” Abbie said. She already had trouble keeping her eyes open, but she wanted to spend every possible moment she could with them before they had to leave.

* * * *

Josh looked down at Abbie as he and Shane finished dressing. Her long red hair was fanned over the pillow, her pale skin almost glowing in the predawn light of their bedroom. Brayden stood beside them, looking at them not their mate. “We’ll make her safe, Bray.”

“I’ll keep her safe until you return,” Brayden whispered.

“We know you will,” Shane said.

He put his arm around Brayden’s shoulders and squeezed their big brother in a one armed hug. Josh smiled at Brayden’s startled expression.

“We want forever with you and Abbie. No more sulking and snarling for us.”

“I make no such promises,” Josh said, cuffing Brayden on the chin. “Come on, Shane. We have to meet Caleb at the Outpost in fifteen minutes.”

Josh took one more look at their sexy mate. The covers had slipped off her legs and he could still see the silvery scars the vampire’s bites had left on her pale skin. He stored away the anger to use when he faced the vampires. He and Shane spoke little on their short drive into town and walked silently into the Outpost to join the rest of the pride.

They both knew what was expected of them, and their mating hadn’t dulled their vicious edge. It had awoken a need to fight harder than ever before because they now had a reason to live.

Brody came out of his mate’s office at the appointed time, to the minute. Landon walked behind him and Elliot walked at his side, their hands firmly clasped together. They moved to complete the circle of shifters and vampires that surrounded Caleb.

“Brody and Isabelle have spent the last few hours searching through maps to find the closest location to the vampire’s camp that Brody is familiar with,” Caleb said. “We will have only ten miles to run before we reach their camp.”

Josh listened as they were given their assignments. They were to follow Isabelle and then separate to surround the camp before attacking on Caleb’s command. They were all to employ the technique that Sean had discovered, to prevent the vampires from reading their thoughts, until that command.

It meant having nothing on their minds but questions about unrelated and inconsequential matters. The vampires could only read thoughts that were currently in their minds, the idea was to not think about killing them. It had worked for Sean when he had saved Kaitlyn, so they were hopeful that it would be equally successful with their greater numbers.

“Brody, it’s time to go to Colorado for Calder and Samson,” Caleb said.

The demon nodded and kissed both of his mates before disappearing. He returned in a matter of seconds with two cat shifters. The bigger one Josh new by reputation, Samson Reed.

He was as big as Prescott, over six-and-a-half feet tall, and was hugely muscled. He was going to stay in Pine Falls and help Prescott to keep the town’s humans and shifters safe. The other man was not as tall or muscled, but he held an air of menace that Josh recognized instantly. Calder Wilder was deadly. While Samson smiled as he was greeted and thanked by Caleb, the other man simply nodded and surveyed the room as though assessing whom he would kill first.

“Him, I like,” Shane said under his breath. “He’s our kind of people.”

Only a flick of Calder’s eyes in their direction signaled that he’d heard them. A feral smile spread across his lips. Josh and Shane both growled softly in acknowledgment. The three of them were going to enjoy killing some vampires.

“Aiden and Isabelle will go first. Ray and Calder next, followed by Shane and myself,” Caleb said. “Brody will then make the final trip for Josh and Elliot. We kill them all, free the hybrids, and gather any information we can about their contacts before razing the camp and returning home.”

Caleb smiled at Brody and clasped the demon’s shoulder. “We’d be doing this in a completely different manner without your help, my friend. And we’d be gone for days, not hours. Thank you, Brody. We’ll keep Elliot safe.”

Brody cleared his throat and nodded, his eyes shining with unshed tears. “Let’s get this show on the road.”

The room emptied quickly as Brody left and returned with only seconds separating each journey. When only Josh and Elliot were left in the room with Samson Reed, the big cougar shifter approached them.

“I’ve left my pregnant mate at home to come here. I understand exactly how you feel. I will protect your mates with my life.”

Josh only had time to nod at the retired soldier/spy/sniper before he was swept into the cold darkness. He bled all thoughts of Abbie from his mind, and filled it with questions on why clouds appeared solid. He imagined that would sufficiently occupy his mind and keep the vampires from reading his murderous intent. It only had to work long enough for them to get close. Then he would let his beast loose. Then the vampires would know fear.

* * * *

Brayden prepared a pot of coffee just as the sun began to rise. His brothers had been gone nearly two hours, and it was past time he woke Abbie. All the mates were to spend the day at Caleb’s home, where a large number of the remaining pride would be patrolling the house and grounds as their protection. He was actually supposed to already be there, but Abbie had been sleeping so soundly that he’d let her have a few more minutes of sleep.

His cell vibrated just as he walked into their bedroom. He saw that it was from Lachlan. “We’ll be at your house in five minutes. I’m just waking Abbie now,” Brayden said.

“Get her up. I’ll send Brody to collect you both in two minutes. There’s no time for you to drive there now. Samson has scented vampires in town. Ben Harvey has also detected three distinct scents on the northern edge of town.”

“Fuck. We didn’t act in time,” Brayden said.

Abbie sat up in their bed and rubbed at her eyes. Her hair fell over her creamy breasts, her pink nipples poking out between the strands.
I may be about to engage in a fight to the death, but I can still appreciate beauty.
His wolf snarled and snapped its jaws, and it jerked his mind back on task.
Kill the vampires. Protect my mate
.

“I heard from Caleb just before he shifted for the attack. There are also a great many more vampires there than they anticipated. It seems they’d brought in more help after Isabelle freed Abbie.”

“We’ll be ready in one minute. Send Brody now.”

Brayden hung up the phone and saw Abbie closing the bathroom door. She was a shifter. She would have heard every word Lachlan had said. He gathered some jeans, underwear, and a warm sweater for her. Brody appeared in the room just as he handed the clothes to Abbie through a crack in the door.

“I’ll be right out,” Abbie said.

“We need to get back there,” Brody said. He was fidgeting and anxious. “I promised Caleb I wouldn’t leave Meg’s side.”

“My fault, Brody. I’m sorry you needed to come get us.” Brayden picked Abbie up and crushed her to him as soon as she opened the bathroom door. “Let’s go.”

None of them had imagined the vampires would come here so soon or Caleb would never have made the decision to go to Canada. They’d all been very wrong.

As they had drawn closer to the encampment Isabelle had rescued Abbie from, Aiden had informed them that there were now a great many more vampires guarding the hybrids. Caleb had then sent the pride out in teams to surround the camp and be ready to attack on his signal.

Aiden had insisted on staying with him. As his newest enforcer, he’d taken the responsibility to protect his Alpha seriously. After calling Lachlan he’d stripped off his clothes and shifted. He now only had one job to complete before he signaled the attack.

Moving silently to Aiden’s side, Caleb drew back his lips in a silent snarl. It bared his razor-sharp canines to the vampire. Caleb was not as large a cougar as his brother, Prescott, but he still stood shoulder height with the vampire.

“My blood will be the bond of my allegiance to your pride, Alpha.” Aiden tilted his head to the side and bared his neck to Caleb in submission. Caleb would rather have simply pricked the vampire’s finger to take some of his blood, but Aiden had said that the ceremony of the ritual was important.

Caleb bit into the vampire’s neck. His blood tasted different from any Caleb had previously tasted. It was thick and sweet-flavored, lacking any coppery bitterness or saltiness. Aiden had said he needed only a drop of his blood to complete the bond, so he withdrew his teeth quickly and licked the wound closed.

“I’m honored by your trust and by my position in your pride, Alpha.”

The words were spoken directly into his mind. The bond had worked.

“Of course it worked,”
Aiden said, smirking at Caleb.

“I’m going to regret letting you into my mind after this mission is completed. Prescott has warned me how annoying you are.”
Caleb threw his head back and roared.

* * * *

Shane, Josh, and Calder had been deployed to circle around to the south of the camp and await Caleb’s signal. Calder gave them the added advantage of being able to scent the vampires, something their wolf noses were not sensitive enough to discern. They didn’t talk, they were each running useless questions through their minds to keep the vampires from gaining any useful knowledge as they drew closer to the camp.

At the sound of Caleb’s roar the three of them ran for the high fence that surrounded the camp. Shane stopped his mindless ramblings and focused on his rage over Abbie’s imprisonment, rape, and torture. He drew on that fury to fuel his change into his deadly half-shift state.

Shane’s hands and arms sprouted thick white hairs as his claws punched through the ends of his human fingers. He howled his pain as his wolf’s muzzle extended from his face, his longer and stronger wolf jaws now filled with razor-sharp teeth. A glance to his brother showed he had similarly shifted. They looked like the kind of monster born of nightmares and they were even deadlier.

Because he and Josh had been inseparable since birth and had run wild together for more than forty years, Shane thought Caleb had been wise to keep them together. They worked most efficiently as a team, and in this case, it meant they were at their most lethal. Calder ran silently beside them.

Aiden spoke directly into his mind as they crossed the final distance from the tree line to the tall wire fence surrounding the property.
“There are ten vampires patrolling the perimeter of the camp. Elliot, Isabelle, and Ray are going straight for the three vampires inside the buildings. The ones on patrol are ours.”

Shane didn’t break stride as he vaulted easily over the six-foot-high fence. As he landed, Calder landed beside him and immediately snarled. It gave Shane a scant seconds warning, but it was enough, and it allowed him to duck under the swipe of a vampire’s arm as the creature appeared out of nowhere before him. Josh grabbed ahold of the vampire’s outstretched arm as he landed beside Shane. With a viscous twist, the arm was pulled free. The vampire’s scream turned into a gurgle as Shane ripped out the man’s throat with his clawed hand.

Josh nodded to Shane and held the vampire’s head in his hands. Shane twisted the vampire’s body, tearing the head free from the remaining skin and bone. Josh dropped the head to the ground as they ran around the inside of the fence in search of the next vampire.

* * * *

Selwyn left three of the vampires hidden near the town center of Pine Falls. They had orders to kill any shifters who tried to oppose him. He couldn’t believe it a coincidence that his wolf had ended up in the same town as young Kaitlyn. He was old enough not to believe in coincidences. There would be a reason they were both in this town, and he looked forward to torturing that reason from his wayward wolf.
Maybe Kaitlyn likes her sex a little on the rough side. Perhaps I shall torture her as well.

The men Gerard had sent to meet him were fast and strong, but most important, they didn’t ask questions. They had followed his every order to the letter. Gerard obviously knew how to train his men.

If he asked for all the men to be transferred to his employ permanently, it would wipe Gerard’s debt completely. Selwyn could kill his remaining coven and then rule his burgeoning empire alone. He liked that idea. He’d have no need of a coven with an army at his disposal.

But first he needed his drug supply back. As he approached a large ranch, he scented both his hybrids.
Fate must really love me. They are together.
“You three go that way. The rest of you go to the right.”