Despite the pain that drifted to her through the mating bond, Anna allowed herself a little hope. She took off again, trying to build her speed back up to where it had been. She didn’t quite succeed—she’d twisted her ankle pretty good, and even with the increased healing her werewolf gained her, it hurt. Wellesley caught her elbow twice when she would have stumbled.
Eventually, though it was probably only a couple of minutes, the pain faded, and she resumed her breakneck pace. They passed Jericho’s cabin. Charles was still alive—even if their bond was so quiet it scared her.
• • •
SHOTS RANG OUT. Anna hesitated—who was shooting? Charles didn’t have a gun with him. Shaking off her surprise, Anna ran to the trail where she’d left him, but the fight had gone downhill and into the trees.
She and Wellesley scrambled down until they could see over a second, even steeper, drop-off to the battle royal below.
Charles was crumpled in a heap, and Leah, Asil, and Juste were fanned out between him and the bear. Leah had a gun in one hand and a wicked-looking knife in the other. Asil had a bladed weapon somewhere between a knife and a short sword in length—it was dripping blood.
Juste threw a fist-sized rock at the bear’s head. A major-league pitcher couldn’t compete with a werewolf for speed or force. The bear tried to get out of the way, but the rock hit it in the head with a crack that knocked it off its feet.
Anna would have plunged down the hill, but Wellesley caught her arm.
“Wait,” he told her, his eyes on the bear. “I need you to stand guard. She will try to stop me when she notices what I’m doing.”
She pulled her eyes off Charles and turned them to Wellesley and demanded in a voice she barely recognized as her own, “Are you a holy man?”
“Are you asking if I can end this creature? I am the last descendant of the holiest family in my clan. The earth speaks to me. Can I end this creature?” His smile was fierce. “I don’t know, but I have dreamed of trying for a very, very long time.”
Wellesley pulled out a cloth folded into a pouch that smelled of garlic, chili, lemon, and some unfamiliar things. He crouched and gathered old leaves, dried grass, and a few sticks. He quickly cleared a space of anything burnable and used the fuel he’d gathered to build the makings of a miniature fire, dumping the spice mixture on top of that.
Below them, Leah put three rounds into the bear—and Juste hit it with another rock. Of the two bullets or rock—the rock seemed to do the more damage. But it was light-footed Asil who made the killing stroke—leaping on top of the wounded bear and sliding his blade between its shoulder blades and through its spine.
Wellesley knelt on the ground and, though Anna had brought him five gallons of gasoline and a barbecue lighter, he lit the fire by holding his hand over it and murmuring a word that made the hair on the back of her neck stand up. He closed his eyes and began to sing—more of a chant, really—in a liquid language she’d never heard before.
She looked around for something to help her defend him—and ended up piling up stones of an appropriate size. Juste’s rocks were proving effective—and she knew how to throw a baseball.
It was too bad, she thought ruefully, that she wasn’t witchborn. The gun would probably be a much better weapon than—
“You have something that belongs to the skinwalker,” said Wellesley—chanting the words in the same rhythm he’d been using so that she almost missed that he was talking to her.
“I have this,” she told him, and pulled the gun out of the back of her waistband.
He didn’t open his eyes, just inclined his head. “Please place it in the fire,” he asked.
Anna eyed the fire. The gun was made mostly of metal—and Wellesley’s fire wasn’t that hot. But she didn’t argue with him, just slid it cautiously into the fire.
She kept an eye on the fight.
The bear had collapsed after Asil’s blow. Asil had continued forward, driven by his own momentum to take five or six strides away from the bear. He turned to regard the fallen beast. Leah and Juste closed in on it warily.
Charles stirred, then staggered to his feet. The sensation of his pain added to the pain of her change made her gasp. He looked up to where Anna and Wellesley were, and she could feel his consternation.
Anna, he told her, and she could feel his despair, run, my love. This thing cannot be killed.
I found a holy man, she told him a bit smugly despite her worry. He’s a little broken, I think. But he believes he can do this. If not, I have gasoline and a lighter.
Behind him, the beast’s form blurred, shrank, and a little girl, no more than six or seven, rose to her hands and knees where the bear had just been. She wore a ragged dress of unbleached cotton, and her dark hair was matted. She looked around her with wide eyes, and her mouth trembled.
“Don’t hurt me,” she said, scrambling away, her eyes on Asil. “I ain’t done nothing to you. Don’t hurt me.”
Sometime, somewhere, the skinwalker had killed and skinned a child. For a moment, Anna could barely breathe.
Charles had turned at the child’s first words. Like Anna, he froze momentarily.
Warn them, said Brother Wolf as their pack mates were pulling out of battle mode. It’s not a child. Anna, warn them.
“It’s a skinwalker,” she called out. “A shapechanger, a witch. It’s not— Watch out Asil!”
Flowing out of the child’s form, the bear, now unharmed, rose again, mad blue eyes sparkling in a stray bit of sunlight. He swatted at Asil, who, warned by Anna, ducked under the swat and went for the bear’s underside. But the bear had seen Wellesley. Ignoring the huge wound that Asil had made in his abdomen, which left entrails escaping, ignoring the werewolves attacking him, the bear began running up the side of the mountain toward Wellesley and Anna.
• • •
SAGE DIDN’T KNOW what had distracted Leah. She had hunted with the Marrok’s mate for two decades or more and would have sworn that nothing could pull that one off a trail once she’d chosen it—but Sage wasn’t going to look gift horses in the mouth.
Her car was parked next to Asil’s Mercedes—though someone—Anna, by the scent of the blood—had broken the window. Just as well, because Sage would have had to do the same thing. She took the token that hung from the leather thong around her neck and bit it again.
The speed of the change made her grit her teeth and shudder. She didn’t make any noise, though. She didn’t know where the werewolves were and had no intention of drawing their attention if she could help it.
Hopefully, they would be fully occupied with Grandma Daisy. Shivering and naked, Sage opened the door of her SUV and grabbed the backpack from the backseat. She pulled on the spare set of clothing she kept there.
Dressed, spare key to her SUV in hand, she drew her first deep breath since she’d looked into Jericho’s eyes and realized what Grandma Daisy had done. She was an old creature—Sage didn’t know how old because her own grandmother had called her Grandma Daisy. Old predators knew how to be patient. But evidently, her patience had run out at last.
Ironic that it had happened on the day that Sage had finally found their quarry. Decades of searching because the Marrok kept his wildlings secret from everyone except for his mate and his two sons. Then Asil had come to the pack—and he also had been sent to deal with the wildlings. She’d attached herself to him to see if he could be persuaded to tell tales—and because he was beautiful.
And he was beautiful.
She would regret Asil, she thought. Maybe once her grandmother had the pack under her control—assuming she could torture the secret of the collars from Wellesley, and Sage never underestimated her Grandma Daisy—maybe Sage would take Asil and use him for a while.
The thought made her smile.
She had worried when Grandma had outed her, worried that she somehow had displeased the skinwalker. But when Grandma had detonated the stink bomb in Charles’s face—Sage had understood. If Grandma Daisy could get Charles alone—if she took Charles—then she could take the whole pack, Wellesley and all.
Grandma Daisy wouldn’t mind throwing away Sage for a chance at the pack, at the Marrok himself. Sage couldn’t blame her, really. But since the chance presented itself to not be a martyr, Sage intended to take it.