Right Wolf, Right Time

Chapter Nine

Monty glared at the bastards on either side of him. Fucking Norris was taking no chances of him escaping this time. Their guns were trained on him and the leather collar bolted to his neck was attached to not one, but two iron chains affixed to stone walls.

The place looked like a reject from a backwoods horror movie. Dead bodies were piled up in corners, some human, some not. He’d seen and heard men fucking during the night, when Norris steered clear of the pit. Monty had been kept in a solitary cell that made him want to scream. Ever since his time with Norris, he couldn’t stand small spaces. But the wolves with him who’d survived had it worse, crammed into a tiny cell barely big enough to sit in without touching something vile.

God, the smells. Death and rot and evil. The noxious return of Hunter’s Folly. Blood, guts and entrails had a particular odor when combined, and fuck if it didn’t make him want to vomit. He’d been forced to watch cats and coyotes scrapping for two straight days. They were saving the wolves, apparently, and he had a bad feeling he knew why.

Sheridan would come after his wolves. So would Burke. God willing, Sophie would stay home. He wondered if his little mate would try to come after him. She worried, he knew that. And she’d offered to help him, but he couldn’t see her tromping through the woods with a gun, looking to shoot Norris. He was a bit disappointed she wasn’t stronger about all this, then swore at himself for wanting her to be something she wasn’t.

Sophie loved him. That was all that mattered.

He glanced at his captors and curled his lip. After three days of shitty food, little water and more than his share of punches, kicks and bruises, he felt more than ready to get to work and annihilate Hunters. Hell, none of this would have been an issue if a dickhead alpha wanna-be hadn’t fucked up their stealth attack.

The wolf had jumped into the middle of everything after following them from a distance. Instead of ordering the idiot to go back, Monty had stupidly agreed to let him stay, thinking the gray wolf only wanted in on some Hunter action. He’d had no idea the guy planned on using their supposed victory as ammo against Rafe, to take over the order. Rafe really needed to work on his leadership, something Monty would be happy to discuss with him when, not if, he returned.

Monty should have been hip-deep in Hunter carcasses, but instead he watched Ted Norris laugh and drink with his old buddies, nearly fifty fucked-up men who thought killing an entertaining way to spend the weekend.

The fear he’d expected at being so close to Norris had come back, but with it was a distinct separation of self. Monty felt his unease and this time embraced it. There was no shame in wanting to give evil some distance. To his surprise, Norris watched him with clear satisfaction, but the man had yet to directly speak to him. He spoke of him, of his demon wolf finally returned. Like Monty was his fucking lost pet.

All around him lanterns flickered as the oil began to run out. Men refilled them, and Monty put his time in this place at close to the fourth day. Down here he couldn’t see daylight, so he judged time by the lantern refills. The fights continued in the center of the main cavern, which he could no longer see from this position, high up on a ledge and back from the main cavern. Dug ten feet deep, a pit twenty feet by forty feet allowed combatant Ac-taw room to maul one another. He knew it was only a matter of time before he joined them. But he had no intention of killing his kind, not with Norris so close.

The bastard raised his head and looked straight at Monty across fifty feet of space. Light gray eyes pierced the gloom, until it was just Monty and Norris with nothing between them but hate and revenge.

Norris grinned, showing flat white teeth. The man looked clean, and a good twenty years younger than he should have. Monty had been puzzling over Norris’s health. Even five weeks later, Burke’s brutal bite into Norris’s cheek should have left some scar. Yet nothing marred the guy’s face.

Norris winked at him and whispered, obviously knowing Monty would hear, “Soon, Demon. We’re just waiting for the fun to really get started.”

Monty’s heart raced. The man next to him kicked him in the side, and he felt his bruised rib literally crack. Fucker.

He snarled and snapped and managed to draw blood before the other guy smacked him in the head with the butt of his rifle.

Monty saw stars and shook his head before he realized the crowd had gone quiet.

“That’s gunshots.” One of the dozens of Hunters present frowned at the corridor directly behind Norris. There was only one way in and one way out, that Monty knew of. “Want me to send my guys out?”

“No, no. My boys are out there.” Matt and Charley, but Brett, the big bastard who’d kicked Monty, stood next to him. Norris’s favorite son, and the first one Monty planned on killing.

More gunfire and the familiar snarl of wolves. The other Ac-taw in the cages built into the walls started howling, spitting and snarling.

“Shut up!” Norris fired his pistol into the ceiling, but it was his inhuman growl that caught Monty’s attention. Damn it all if the guy didn’t sound almost wolf-like.

An odd notion crossed his mind, but more gunfire distracted him.

“Dave, go take care of that, would you?” Norris motioned to the corridor.

Three men raced behind Dave to obey Norris, their guns at the ready.

Shots followed. Norris turned to see something, and then he shouted, “Not her, you idiot.” Norris’s wide smile worried him.

Shit. If the older guy was happy, trouble surely would follow.

And it did. In the form of Monty’s mate.

“Honey, I’m so happy to see you.” Norris grabbed Sophie in his muscular arms and hugged her tight, ignoring her struggles.

That the bastard seemed to know her increased Monty’s unease, but he kept himself and his wolf stock-still. Norris kept on eye on him, as if waiting for a reaction. Monty had played this game for years. He refused to give him one.

“Get off me!” Sophie managed to connect with Norris’s mouth, drawing blood.

The others around them froze.

Norris chuckled and wiped his mouth clean while easily restraining Sophie. “Now is that any way to talk to your uncle? I was worried about you when you left with those wolves. But now I know you were just setting them up. Bringing me my Demon, weren’t you, honey?” He sounded overjoyed.

At mention of his Demon, Sophie looked all around and stopped when she saw him.

Wait a minute. Uncle? Sophie’s uncle was Ted Norris? Demon. He’d told her his name, but she’d already known it? He had more questions than answers, but the misery, not fear, in Sophie’s eyes took him aback. Even from far away he could sense her guilt. The bottom dropped out from his world.

His mate, the woman he’d loved with every fiber of his being, had sold him out.

Norris started laughing so hard he cried. “Oh honey. You done good. Brought me my wolf and an invite into that special town in one big fall, didn’t you? How many did you bring with you? Sixty? A hundred?” He turned to the crowd. “Fellas, we’re having a Folly to end all Follies! Extinction’s come to Cougar Falls!”

The men around him cheered and toasted to success.

“What are you talking about?” She tried to pull from his meaty grip, but Norris wouldn’t let her go.

If she didn’t stop, she’d bruise. Monty wanted to tell her to be careful, and then he wondered why he should care, if she’d set him up. Ted Norris’s niece. So why was she here, looking so sad and scared? None of this made sense. Had she been that great an actress she’d fooled the entire town for two fucking years, pretending to be scared while drawing them to their doom? But she was Ac-taw, and Ted’s niece…

Monty had been right. Norris wasn’t human. But he hadn’t shifted either. What the fuck?

“That group you have outside is just in time for the biggest Hunt ever. Thanks, girlie. Brett, come greet your cousin. She smells so good.” Norris winked at Monty. “Just as pretty as a peach too.” Brett left Monty with the other guard, a stunned smile on his face.

Norris knew Monty had mated her. The bastard taunted him with it. Terrific. Now he’d no doubt torture her to goad Monty into doing his bidding. But it wouldn’t work. First, Monty didn’t think he’d actually hurt his own blood. Nor would Monty care, not if Sophie had been so callous as to turn on her own kind. On him.

She frantically tugged on her wrist until Norris twisted and snapped it. Her howl of pain provoked a reaction Monty couldn’t help, and he turned on the guard holding a gun on him and snapped through his wrist with his teeth, feeling the bullet pass through the back of his neck. The sting hurt, but it was minor. He continued to tear and tug until the wrist gave way.

The chain didn’t allow him much movement, but he kept his focus on the Hunter by his side, not stopping until the fucker died.

Sophie screamed as her uncle pushed her into the pit with the rabid cats who’d paused in their fight with one another.

“Let’s see how much you’ve learned, little girl. Is scared little Sophie ready to take her rightful place yet? You ready to come home?”

Brett blinked at his father in shock. “Ted. That’s Sophie!”

“She’s just an animal whore, boy.” Ted shook his head. “She made her choice.” He turned to Monty. “But she did her job. Brought you to me like I told her to. Too bad she couldn’t keep her legs closed. Just like her momma, God rest her soul.”

The cats snarled and hissed, and Monty’s heart almost stopped, fear for his mate overtaking all sense. He strained and pulled, but he couldn’t tell what was happening in the pit.

He heard louder noises from outside, more guns, wolves growling, and what sounded like vehicles moving in. Large trucks?

Yet he couldn’t take his gaze from the pit, where Sophie had fallen. The screech of a pissed-off cat boiled his blood, and when she cried out for Monty, he saw red. His mate, trapped in this place with his enemy, when he’d promised he’d protect her. He felt the pain stab him deep where his spirit bled. He had to go to her.

Then he noted Norris’s crafty smile.

Or did he? Was Sophie Monty’s or not? They’d bonded. He loved her, she loved him. So why hadn’t she said anything when he’d told her the name of the man he tracked?

He wanted badly to trust, but years with Norris had taught him to count on nothing and no one but himself. Ac-taw would turn on one another in a heartbeat. Monty had only himself to rely on to get out of this mess, to protect the town. Norris was definitely up to no good.

Brett stopped by his father’s side, his face expressionless. “A whore?”

“Yes.”

“Well, damn.” Brett didn’t say anymore. And he didn’t have to.

Ted slapped him on the back. “Good man. Stay strong. Now let’s see what the girl can do.” He faced Monty. “What do you say, Demon? Think your whore can best two feral cats? And these lions have claws, boy. They hate humans.” He peered into the pit. “Well get to it, pussies. Cleave the girl in two and you might live to see another day.”

Monty needed her to shift, and he barked at her to do so, furious he couldn’t trust his instincts, which told him to save her, no questions asked.

More feline yowling and snarling, then nothing, and Monty wished to hell he could see. Whatever happened had to be good, though, because Norris started frowning. Explosions sounded from outside, and the Hunters looked nervous. Norris lifted his pistol and aimed at the pit, ready to fire.

Monty’s whole life flashed before his eyes, and he pulled on his collar hard enough to choke himself.

Before Norris could fire, a huge white wolf knocked him on his ass.

Axel?

“Sophie, get your ass out of there. And bring the cats,” Axel roared.

Monty stared, wide-eyed, as Ted shot at Axel and screamed at Brett to move with him. Hunters started firing at anything with fur, but not as many had their guns with them as they might have liked. They’d been ready to watch Shifters rip each other apart, not actually fight them off themselves. The booze they’d imbibed didn’t help them either.

As Norris crossed toward Monty, Monty knew he had to take a chance. Though vulnerable, he allowed himself to shift, hoping somehow he might slip out of his collar while mid-transformation.

Before he could manage it, Norris reached him, and Monty settled back into his wolf. He lunged and caught Brett’s leg. He refused to let go, even while the man screamed and Ted struck at his jaw again and again.

He blacked out.

When he came to, he saw the woods around him in a blur as he bounced in the open back of a Jeep barreling away from the camp. Sophie. Where is Sophie?

“Fucking professionals, my ass,” Norris snarled. “How hard is it to spray Hunter’s mist? You tranq the wolves and move in on them. Jesus. We should have had enough for three more follies this year. Instead the camp’s a mess and we took massive casualties. What a cluster.”

Brett remained quiet a moment before he asked quietly, “Charley and Matt? What about them, Dad?”

Ted smacked him, the slap loud in the night. “It’s Ted, you moron. Your brothers were perverted, unclean filth. Matt fucked those animals. Male or female didn’t seem to matter. And Charley was less than useless. They played bait, and they managed to screw even that up. Matt should have radioed to let me know when to set off the traps. He’s dead? Good. It’s more than he deserved.”

Brett raged at his father, his attack unexpected. The Jeep bobbed all over the place, but Monty couldn’t move, still chained, this time to the frame of the vehicle.

Until it overturned.

Sophie was as frantic to get far away from the cats growling at her as she was to rescue Monty. God, the look he’d given her, the hurt and anger. She hoped she could make things right before she died, at least.

One of the cats raked claws across her back, and it took her mind from the throbbing ache of her wrist. Enraged at being stuck down here while the chaos above them continued, her mate at risk, she turned and snapped back at them. Without thinking, she let her wolf take charge.

In seconds she felt herself leave her flesh, the bright feel of warmth and earth and life so freeing, and then she fell back into bone and skin again, but this time it was covered with fur as she wriggled out of her clothes.

“Cut it out,” she tried to yell and instead barked at the cats.

They stared at her in surprise.

One of them prodded at her mind, but she refused to let him in, not used to accepting the unfamiliar mental touch of an unknown feline.

She shook her head and winced when she put pressure on her front left paw. Her back still stung, but not as badly now. Then Axel shoved his snout over the rim of the pit.

“Hey, you three. You want to stay in here and provide fun times for these fuckers, or would you rather kill a few and get the hell out?”

The cats glanced at each other, then leapt out of the pit with ease. Sophie tried, but her paw hampered her.

Axel scowled and his ears flattened. “Just hold on.” The noise, bullets and chaos above her grew louder. Then the end of a rope smacked her in the nose.

“Ow.”

Axel grinned. “Man, you are in so much trouble when Rafe sees what happened. Quit whining and grab on with your teeth. I’ll pull you out, little wolf.”

She wasn’t as concerned with Rafe as she was Monty. She bit hard and used the rope to get out of the pit. Finally. A glance around her showed Ac-taw fighting Hunters all over the place.

“He’s gone with Norris. Come on.” Axel stayed by her, his large bulk easily batting Hunters and Shifters out of their way as they worked toward the other end of the corridor, to the back exit. “Norris went this way.”

They exited and met a dozen angry wolves growling with warning. When they spotted Axel they immediately subsided and wagged their tails.

“Where’s Rafe?” Axel asked.

Sophie ignored him and limped forward as fast as she could. She caught the tail end of a vehicle and Monty’s scent as it left the compound. Though close to tears from her wounds and her worry, she refused to quit. Her wolf was a lot stronger than she’d thought.

I’m sorry I kept you down for so long, she told her animal spirit, feeling both the same yet apart from her animal half. It confused her and felt right all at the same time.

Just don’t do it anymore. We’re better together, the wolf responded. Then the creature urged her to hurry up, because the Jeep grew smaller as it moved into the forest. Sophie watched with horror as it turned too fast and simply disappeared. The sound of it bumping and rolling caused her to panic.

Monty hadn’t looked well before, and who knew what condition he lay in with her uncle behind the wheel. She hurried and felt them before she saw them, wolves at her sides, her back and pulling in front of her.

“Come on,” Rafe said as he joined them. “Your mate just went over the mountain.”

Sophie ran harder, ignoring the pain of her wrist with her wolf’s support, and rushed to the edge. She wasn’t careful and slid nearly the whole way to the bottom. Lifting her nose, she sought Monty’s scent and found him wobbling on his feet as he approached her uncle.

Ted Norris had broken his leg. She could see the bone protruding through his flesh. But that didn’t slow the man much. To her amazement, he held a gun aimed at Monty. Brett lay on his side some distance from the vehicle, unmoving.

“Stop, you fucking beast. I’ve won.” Ted’s gaze scanned the approaching wolves and lit up when he caught sight of Sophie. “Come here, niece.”

Sophie limped forward, appearing weaker than she was on her wolf’s advice. Shifting had partially healed her wrist. A good thing to know.

“How’s that wrist, hmm?”

Monty didn’t speak to her. He waited by her side when she reached him, but he didn’t say a word, mentally or otherwise, and her heart broke.

She needed to talk to her uncle, to distract him. So she told her wolf to wait and shifted back into her human form. Her uncle blinked, his eyes wide, and stared.

“I never get tired of seeing that.” He tightened his grip on the gun, his aim now on her and not Monty. “You move, wolf, I blow her in two.”

Monty didn’t flinch. A glance at him showed his ice-blue eyes locked in fury on Ted Norris. His enemy. Her uncle.

She wanted to cry.

“Cover yourself, girl.” Her uncle tossed his jacket at her, and she hurried to put it on.

“Why? Why do you hide who you are?” she asked him softly. “Why did you make me hide who I was?” She’d never known. Her parents had never told her, and then they’d died and left her with her mother’s brother.

“You’re human. That beast is weakness, girl. You had so much potential.” Ted shook his head, but the gun remained steady. “If you work hard, if you have discipline, you can chain it, use it. I’m stronger and faster. I heal and don’t feel pain. I don’t have outside needs. Just food and water and exercise to tame the beast inside.”

“Restrain the beast, you mean.” Sophie wanted to understand. “You killed innocent people, Uncle Ted.” She recalled the Ac-taw who’d been so kind to her, the Shifter who’d given her her first kiss, shot through the head by her uncle.

“Not people. Animals. Monsters.” His gray eyes, so like hers, darkened. “Your mother knew better. She should have listened when I told her. But like you, she chose an animal over her own kind. I tried to ignore them, but she wouldn’t go away. She came back to see Mother, and she brought him. A wolf. And you.” He looked at her, and she wished she could call it love. But fanaticism stared back at her. “You were so pretty, so quiet. And I thought you might have a chance at a normal life. So I took care of them and brought you to my home.”

She blinked. “What?” She took a step closer, ignoring Monty when he nudged her side to stop. “Took care how?”

“With a silver bullet. How else do you kill a wolf?” Ted smiled. Nothing sane left to the man.

The wolves around them waited, on edge. But Ted looked at nothing but Sophie. “I thought you’d beaten it. You didn’t ask questions. You never talked out of turn. A good girl, until you started collecting those damn rabbits.”

“You told me th-the wolves ate them.”

“Yeah. And you had your vengeance, didn’t you? You tasted the rapture of a clean kill.”

“I shot him.” She nodded, remembering the fear and hatred, seeing the wolf covered in blood over the cage where her beloved pets, her only friends, had been. And she knew. “It was you. You killed the rabbits. You made me—” Kill a wolf who wasn’t a wolf.

She wanted to be sick, but her anger grew. And she let it. No longer afraid of the rages of her animal, she fostered it.

Monty chose to speak. “Let it go, Sophie. Step back. He wants you to attack. He’s waiting to pull the trigger.”

She ignored him. “You’re a cheat and a liar.”

Ted’s eyes widened.

“Sophie, shut the fuck up. You made this mess, now let me get us out of it. Or are you trying to kill me after all?” Monty’s scorn hurt, but she couldn’t stop. Not after learning her entire life had been a product of her uncle’s fear and bigotry.

“A coward afraid of his own shadow. Yeah, I’d know,” she sneered. “Because that’s what you made me into. You captured creatures better and stronger than you, jealous because they could be what you weren’t.”

“That’s not true.” Ted glared. “I’m pure, I’m strong. They’re weak. Stupid beasts.”

“Yeah, well this stupid beast escaped.” She pointed at her chest. “And your stupid Demon, just a dumb animal, evaded you for six fucking years.” Her voice continued to rise as she stepped closer, ignoring Monty’s warning to stop. “You’re nothing. Not a man, not a beast, just a scared little shit afraid of his own shadow,” she shrieked.

Ted shot her right before Monty attacked. Just like that. She hadn’t expected it. But then, she hadn’t expected any of this.

Wolves came out of the treeline and jumped him, but not before Monty had sunk his teeth into Ted’s neck and ripped out his throat.

She caught snippets of it, but the pain at her side overcame her intention to watch the bastard bleed to death. He’d taken so much from her. Her parents, her wolf, and now, Monty.

Her mate would never forgive her for lying to him, for being a part of Ted Norris, a man he hated, and with good reason.

Coward that she was, she wanted to succumb to the darkness taking her under and ignore her inner wolf once more as she wallowed in grief. But the wolf prodded. No. Shift back. Hurry. Think of the pup. Do it for him. For me.

Sophie struggled through the black dotting her vision. Monty glared at her, no trace of love in his face, and she knew she’d lost him. She couldn’t smell anything but her uncle’s rot and blood. But worry for her baby overwhelmed her, and with a burst of energy she hadn’t known she possessed, she shifted back into her wolf, the pain lessening with the change.

“Good. Thank God.” Axel leaned close, but Monty shoved him aside, again a man, one wearing enough bruises to add to an already impressive collection of scars.

“That was the dumbest, stupidest, most half-assed plan I’ve ever seen in my life. You are a fucking lunatic.” He gently lifted her—a full wolf—in his arms and carried her away.

Nothing in him yielded, but she hadn’t expected him to. Not after the truth came out. She closed her eyes, still in love and reveling in the scent of her mate, and drifted to sleep.