Trial by Fire
Page 47
I couldn’t take any chances, because if there was one thing the blood on my hands had hit home, it was the reality that from here out, we were playing for keeps.
“She’s not prey,” I said out loud. “Not yet. We’re going to let them bring the fight to us.”
Beside me, Devon groaned. With no small amount of ceremony, he lifted his right hand, dug his fingernails into his chest, and ripped out the bullet.
“Well, there goes that manicure,” he muttered.
“Somebody bring me a med kit,” I said, my voice the only sound in the room. “Mitch, I’ll need you to weigh in on a couple of things. Lake, bring me up to speed on the explosives. And will somebody please get Devon some clothes?”
My hands soaked in my best friend’s blood, I prepared my pack for war. Now that the course was set, now that we’d passed the point of no return, I felt an odd sense of calm rolling over my body, a whisper in the back of my mind.
I could practically taste the red haze of Resilience, hovering just out of reach.
We waited for the attack at the edge of the forest, where we had the benefit of cover and our attackers would not. Lake, Maddy, Phoebe, and Sage took the front line; Devon and the kids were hidden safely away. Our perimeter was lined with explosives, and I was ready and willing to use them.
If Caroline tried to set up some kind of sniper’s nest and pick us off one by one, she was going to be very unpleasantly surprised.
I felt detached from what we were about to do, but my heart was pounding, feeding my brain adrenaline, fueling the pack’s appetite for blood. This was a hunt. We were hunters, and the air was heavy with the things a werewolf pack, backed into a corner, could do.
Would do.
I could see the expression on Caroline’s face as she took in Devon’s wolf form, pulled the trigger. She’d shut down emotionally, but as I played the moment over and over again in my mind, I caught wisps of fury, vulnerability, fear.
Pack. Pack. Pack.
I didn’t want to kill her, didn’t want to kill any of them, but if it came down to our lives or theirs, if Caroline started shooting, I’d put her down like a rabid dog—the same way I was going to go after Valerie and end this once and for all.
Alpha. Alpha. Alpha.
My chest tightened and a ball of energy exploded inside me, pushing me forward, willing me to force my way to the front of the pack—in front of Lake, in front of Maddy. Every instinct I had said to face this threat head-on.
“Bryn.”
My eyes were so focused on the horizon that I didn’t see Ali until she’d made her way back to the point in the forest where I stood. Briefly, I wondered what she was doing here, but then I saw the gun in her hand and the look on her face—one I recognized all too well.
I’d invented that look.
“Ali, you can’t—”
“I can’t fight because I’m human?” Ali said, cutting me off. “Or because you don’t trust me not to get myself killed?”
There was no answering that question. I didn’t even try.
“I may not be strong, I may not be fast, and God knows that I don’t have even the tiniest sliver of psychic ability, but I am a part of this pack. I am a part of you, Bryn, and when I say that you are not going up against this coven without me, I mean it.”
The message was clear in her stance and the set of her chin: alpha or not, I was her daughter. My fights were her fights, case closed.
“Can you shoot?” It was probably a stupid question, but I’d never actually seen Ali armed.
“Better than you can,” Ali replied. “I’ve always been a decent shot.”
She fell in beside me, and Chase took a step toward the two of us. I looked at him. He looked at me. We waited. And no matter how much I wanted to, I couldn’t tell him that his willingness to trade the pack’s safety for mine didn’t matter to me. I couldn’t tell him that everything would be okay, that we would be okay, and he knew it.
“Be careful,” he said softly.
I pictured myself raising my right hand, waiting for him to do the same. I saw myself melting into him, but I didn’t move a muscle.
“I will be,” I said.
He nodded.
“Chase?” His name caught in my throat as he turned back to face me once more. “You be careful, too.”
He nodded, and then I felt it—a prickling at the back of my neck, a shifting in the air around me as the Weres began to scent our prey. The psychics were close, getting closer.
This was it.
Pack. Pack. Pack.
The pull of the pack at the edges of my mind was unbearable, overwhelming. I hadn’t asked for this battle. The human part of me didn’t want it, but in those last moments before the enemy came into view, I could feel my humanity falling away, like sand through my fingertips, like the memory of a dream I’d never be able to reclaim.
Alpha. Alpha. Alpha.
Prey. Prey. Prey.
We were Pack. The coven had come here to hunt us. One way or another, this was bound to end in blood.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
TO MY LEFT, ALI READIED HER GUN. ON MY RIGHT, Chase Shifted, flooding my mind with heightened perceptions from his wolf form: the sound of footsteps, the smell of gunpowder and lead.
“Lake.” I was surprised that my voice could sound so human when the rest of me felt so not. “Now.”
On short notice, we hadn’t been able to round up more than three or four pairs of earplugs, but given the number of teens and tweens in our pack, we had iPods to spare. On my order, the girls turned up their music, drowning out all other sounds. If the coven wanted to get past our first line of defense, they’d have to do it the old-fashioned way—without the help of Bridget’s knack.
As if on cue, a single note wafted its way through the forest on the wind, announcing the psychics’ presence long before they appeared on the horizon, walking toward us like they hadn’t a care in the world.
I knew what to expect, but the sound—sweet and simple and so full of longing that I ached to hear more—nailed my feet to the ground and brought my hands to my sides. I’d chosen to go without earplugs, because the one advantage I’d have in this fight was my own knack—and it only came out to play when I felt threatened, in mortal danger, trapped.
That was where Bridget came in. The sound—oh, God, the sound—rushed me, enveloping my body, my mind, drowning out everything and everyone else, until there was nothing.
Until I was trapped.
If it had been just me, it would have taken longer for my Resilience to flare up, but even as I lost all ability to care about the outside world, the rest of the pack gnawed at the gates of my mind, and their panic at my sudden stillness spurred a single spark of my own.
Trapped—Escape—Trapped.
For an instant, I saw the music as a physical thing, multi-limbed and snakelike. It held me in place. When I struggled, it tightened, but the overwhelming need for freedom burst out of me, and I saw the world in shades of red. Black dots played around the edges of my vision, but this time, instead of giving in to the haze, I rode it like a wave.
Fight. Fight. Fight.
Survive.
The psychics spread out—eight of them, Caroline and Archer nowhere in sight.
Fight. Fight. Fight.
I slipped sideways through the forest, far enough away from the rest of the group that—assuming the coven really was gunning for me—a portion of our attackers would have to follow. The first shot rang out, and the only reason I knew it wasn’t Caroline was because the shooter missed.
The world was coming at me faster now. My heart raced, the amount of adrenaline coursing through my bloodstream an inhuman thing. I felt Chase throwing off Bridget’s hold, and like dominoes, the others followed.
Now, I told them, and like horses bucking their riders, the girls gave up cover and rushed our assailants, crossing the space between them in a fraction of the time it took me to draw prey of my own.
Teeth snapped. Metal flew. A high-pitched whine cut me to the core, fueling my need to fight, to protect.
To survive.
“Hello, mutt-lover.”
Archer’s voice assaulted my mind, taking me back to my dreams. I saw the forest, the wolf, the fire—saw it as if it were real and the rest of the world had just faded away. Archer’s hold on my mind wasn’t a sharp, stabbing pain this time; it was burning, liquid flame: invincible, hungry.
“She’s not prey,” I said out loud. “Not yet. We’re going to let them bring the fight to us.”
Beside me, Devon groaned. With no small amount of ceremony, he lifted his right hand, dug his fingernails into his chest, and ripped out the bullet.
“Well, there goes that manicure,” he muttered.
“Somebody bring me a med kit,” I said, my voice the only sound in the room. “Mitch, I’ll need you to weigh in on a couple of things. Lake, bring me up to speed on the explosives. And will somebody please get Devon some clothes?”
My hands soaked in my best friend’s blood, I prepared my pack for war. Now that the course was set, now that we’d passed the point of no return, I felt an odd sense of calm rolling over my body, a whisper in the back of my mind.
I could practically taste the red haze of Resilience, hovering just out of reach.
We waited for the attack at the edge of the forest, where we had the benefit of cover and our attackers would not. Lake, Maddy, Phoebe, and Sage took the front line; Devon and the kids were hidden safely away. Our perimeter was lined with explosives, and I was ready and willing to use them.
If Caroline tried to set up some kind of sniper’s nest and pick us off one by one, she was going to be very unpleasantly surprised.
I felt detached from what we were about to do, but my heart was pounding, feeding my brain adrenaline, fueling the pack’s appetite for blood. This was a hunt. We were hunters, and the air was heavy with the things a werewolf pack, backed into a corner, could do.
Would do.
I could see the expression on Caroline’s face as she took in Devon’s wolf form, pulled the trigger. She’d shut down emotionally, but as I played the moment over and over again in my mind, I caught wisps of fury, vulnerability, fear.
Pack. Pack. Pack.
I didn’t want to kill her, didn’t want to kill any of them, but if it came down to our lives or theirs, if Caroline started shooting, I’d put her down like a rabid dog—the same way I was going to go after Valerie and end this once and for all.
Alpha. Alpha. Alpha.
My chest tightened and a ball of energy exploded inside me, pushing me forward, willing me to force my way to the front of the pack—in front of Lake, in front of Maddy. Every instinct I had said to face this threat head-on.
“Bryn.”
My eyes were so focused on the horizon that I didn’t see Ali until she’d made her way back to the point in the forest where I stood. Briefly, I wondered what she was doing here, but then I saw the gun in her hand and the look on her face—one I recognized all too well.
I’d invented that look.
“Ali, you can’t—”
“I can’t fight because I’m human?” Ali said, cutting me off. “Or because you don’t trust me not to get myself killed?”
There was no answering that question. I didn’t even try.
“I may not be strong, I may not be fast, and God knows that I don’t have even the tiniest sliver of psychic ability, but I am a part of this pack. I am a part of you, Bryn, and when I say that you are not going up against this coven without me, I mean it.”
The message was clear in her stance and the set of her chin: alpha or not, I was her daughter. My fights were her fights, case closed.
“Can you shoot?” It was probably a stupid question, but I’d never actually seen Ali armed.
“Better than you can,” Ali replied. “I’ve always been a decent shot.”
She fell in beside me, and Chase took a step toward the two of us. I looked at him. He looked at me. We waited. And no matter how much I wanted to, I couldn’t tell him that his willingness to trade the pack’s safety for mine didn’t matter to me. I couldn’t tell him that everything would be okay, that we would be okay, and he knew it.
“Be careful,” he said softly.
I pictured myself raising my right hand, waiting for him to do the same. I saw myself melting into him, but I didn’t move a muscle.
“I will be,” I said.
He nodded.
“Chase?” His name caught in my throat as he turned back to face me once more. “You be careful, too.”
He nodded, and then I felt it—a prickling at the back of my neck, a shifting in the air around me as the Weres began to scent our prey. The psychics were close, getting closer.
This was it.
Pack. Pack. Pack.
The pull of the pack at the edges of my mind was unbearable, overwhelming. I hadn’t asked for this battle. The human part of me didn’t want it, but in those last moments before the enemy came into view, I could feel my humanity falling away, like sand through my fingertips, like the memory of a dream I’d never be able to reclaim.
Alpha. Alpha. Alpha.
Prey. Prey. Prey.
We were Pack. The coven had come here to hunt us. One way or another, this was bound to end in blood.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
TO MY LEFT, ALI READIED HER GUN. ON MY RIGHT, Chase Shifted, flooding my mind with heightened perceptions from his wolf form: the sound of footsteps, the smell of gunpowder and lead.
“Lake.” I was surprised that my voice could sound so human when the rest of me felt so not. “Now.”
On short notice, we hadn’t been able to round up more than three or four pairs of earplugs, but given the number of teens and tweens in our pack, we had iPods to spare. On my order, the girls turned up their music, drowning out all other sounds. If the coven wanted to get past our first line of defense, they’d have to do it the old-fashioned way—without the help of Bridget’s knack.
As if on cue, a single note wafted its way through the forest on the wind, announcing the psychics’ presence long before they appeared on the horizon, walking toward us like they hadn’t a care in the world.
I knew what to expect, but the sound—sweet and simple and so full of longing that I ached to hear more—nailed my feet to the ground and brought my hands to my sides. I’d chosen to go without earplugs, because the one advantage I’d have in this fight was my own knack—and it only came out to play when I felt threatened, in mortal danger, trapped.
That was where Bridget came in. The sound—oh, God, the sound—rushed me, enveloping my body, my mind, drowning out everything and everyone else, until there was nothing.
Until I was trapped.
If it had been just me, it would have taken longer for my Resilience to flare up, but even as I lost all ability to care about the outside world, the rest of the pack gnawed at the gates of my mind, and their panic at my sudden stillness spurred a single spark of my own.
Trapped—Escape—Trapped.
For an instant, I saw the music as a physical thing, multi-limbed and snakelike. It held me in place. When I struggled, it tightened, but the overwhelming need for freedom burst out of me, and I saw the world in shades of red. Black dots played around the edges of my vision, but this time, instead of giving in to the haze, I rode it like a wave.
Fight. Fight. Fight.
Survive.
The psychics spread out—eight of them, Caroline and Archer nowhere in sight.
Fight. Fight. Fight.
I slipped sideways through the forest, far enough away from the rest of the group that—assuming the coven really was gunning for me—a portion of our attackers would have to follow. The first shot rang out, and the only reason I knew it wasn’t Caroline was because the shooter missed.
The world was coming at me faster now. My heart raced, the amount of adrenaline coursing through my bloodstream an inhuman thing. I felt Chase throwing off Bridget’s hold, and like dominoes, the others followed.
Now, I told them, and like horses bucking their riders, the girls gave up cover and rushed our assailants, crossing the space between them in a fraction of the time it took me to draw prey of my own.
Teeth snapped. Metal flew. A high-pitched whine cut me to the core, fueling my need to fight, to protect.
To survive.
“Hello, mutt-lover.”
Archer’s voice assaulted my mind, taking me back to my dreams. I saw the forest, the wolf, the fire—saw it as if it were real and the rest of the world had just faded away. Archer’s hold on my mind wasn’t a sharp, stabbing pain this time; it was burning, liquid flame: invincible, hungry.
