Cade (2 page)

None of that mattered right now, though. What mattered was getting out of these woodlands and to Cade’s car—to safety. It would not be long before the
Humans
were searching for the ‘giant monster’ that had eaten a boy in the street.

Cade held the boy tightly to his chest as he moved swiftly through the woods. All the while he listened, though—listening for any sound of someone approaching or any kind of threat. Yet, what exactly it was that Cade was doing, he didn’t know. But he couldn’t leave the boy there to the
Humans
. He couldn’t leave him to the shit they would do to him when they found him … and for what? Their own stupid fear, fuelled by their own stupid lies. It was pathetic. They were pathetic.

Cade glanced down as the boy’s eyes suddenly shot open. Before Cade could say a word, the boy arched his back in a bid to get away, stiffening like a board. Cade tightened his grip on him, trying to hold him in place. “No, no. Not now,” he ground through gritted teeth.

The boy twisted awkwardly, forcing Cade to crouch down with him so that he didn’t slip out of his grasp and land painfully on the ground, smashing his back and doing himself more damage.

The boy hit the ground, arms and legs flailing desperately. He scrambled away, half-blind with panic, backing up in the direction of the
Humans
.

“Stop,” Cade hissed at him, trying to keep his voice low. He grabbed for him—anything to keep him from running into the arms of the
Humans
and to his own torturous death. The
Humans
would not let him die easily. “It isn’t safe,” Cade said slowly. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

“Let me go,” the boy shot back, distressed.

Cade immediately stopped advancing, holding his hands up in a non-threatening gesture. The last thing he wanted was to chase the boy back in the wrong direction. At most, he would walk away from the boy—if that’s what was needed. But he wasn’t going to be responsible for the kid being caught. Cade kept his hands up to demonstrate that he wasn’t being confrontational. “I’m not going to hurt you. Okay?”

“Where are you taking me?”

A crack echoed behind them. Cade’s head snapped around in the direction of the sound. The
Humans
. Clenching his jaw, he held his breath and listened. They were far away—still had to be at the edge of the tree line. Pathetic cowards they were. They’d have an entire army out there just to hunt down one small boy and then hold him up like a trophy when they slaughtered him.

A rumble, then a crack of lightning, sounded through the air. Something thudded and voices suddenly echoed in the woods. The
Humans
were coming. Cade stifled a curse, sweat forming on his brow as he attempted to maintain a calm exterior and convince the frightened boy that he was harmless, then get him the hell out of there.

“I live just up the way,” he said evenly, pointing to the path that led to his car. It was a little lie, but it didn’t matter so much. He’d tell him he was bloody Santa Claus if it got the boy to come with him and out of the jaws that were about to clamp down and kill his ass. “I was just taking you back to my house.”

“What for?” The boy stared at him, his eyes wide and distrustful. He was still on the ground, but he was ready to run again should Cade make the wrong move and, god, if he
did
make the wrong move, he was sure that the boy would play straight into the hands of the enemy that was hunting him.

“To help you,” he replied gently, making sure to keep his voice cool and reassuring, even while everything in him screamed to get out of there as fast as possible. The acrid smell of smoke crept in at the edges of his senses. He glanced past the boy and to the path he had come along. The
Humans
were closing in on them.

“I don’t need your help,” the boy protested weakly. “Leave me alone.” He tried to stand on shaky legs, reaching out to steady himself by placing a hand on a tree. Cade held himself back, everything in him wanting to leap forward and grab the boy, and then get them both the hell out of there. His
wolf
pushed inside. “Give me … my …” The boy struggled to talk as he held out his other hand for the bag. He tried again. “Give me …”

Cade kept one eye on the boy and one eye on the darkness just beyond. It was starting to glow with a faint orange. He barely restrained the panic and urgency that was starting to swamp him.

“I-I don’t need your help,” the boy uttered with difficulty before sliding back down the tree trunk, his legs unable to support him any longer. Cade grabbed the chance and leapt forward, snatching the boy up before he could completely collapse to the ground. He didn’t give the boy any choice now. He lifted him easily and started to run. He wasn’t in his
wolf
form, but he could still run faster than any
Human
could. The boy opened his mouth to protest once more, but then his head lolled back as he passed out again. Cade didn’t have time to stop. He ran as fast as he could.

His legs burned with the strain of carrying the weight of two people uphill. Why had he chosen to shift in these woods? He didn’t know, but he was sure regretting it as his calves cramped up, each step feeling like his legs were tearing in two. His neck was stiff and knots formed in his shoulders.

“One more step. Just one more fucking step, and I'm there,” he told himself.

The
Humans
hadn't come to the car park yet. Cade laughed to himself. “Idiots.” Placing the boy gently on the ground next to the car, he fished his keys out of his pocket and unlocked the car door. The car park was on an incline that overlooked the woods below. His breath caught when he looked down and saw an orange glow slowly spreading.
Fuck.
The trees were on fire.

Fury rose in Cade, as fast and as swiftly as the fire he now watched rage through the forest. Apart from stupid and cowardly, the
Humans
were also unconscionable. They had no respect for the environment, no thought given to the life they were destroying in the woods right now. No care about the immense environmental repercussions of their actions. As long as it helped them flush out what they were looking for, nothing else mattered. Let’s just burn it down and get rid of all the problems.

Sometimes, most of the times, Cade hated the
Humans
just as much as they hated
Others
. But then he knew that they were just stupid. Stupid creatures who spent more time hating the world and everything in it than being thankful to be alive. They bitched about clothes and celebrities. They bitched about shit that didn’t matter. They ploughed money into building useless landmarks, yet let children and families live in squalor and poverty, and even die. Cade was glad he wasn’t
Human
. Whoever had bitten this boy had probably given him a chance at a better life. All he had to do was survive.

Cade stared down at the trees and woods, dread and dismay flooding him. He could tell it was a controlled fire. “Urobach,” he muttered under his breath. He knew all too well what they were. They controlled fire. They burnt towns and communities and didn’t care who was there or who died. They burnt
Others
alive, whether they were innocent or not. He had seen them when he was a child. He had been hiding in one of the barns on the local farm. He wasn’t meant to be there. It was a farm for
Others
—Billy’s Place, they had called it. Billy had kept sheep and cows. They had been lame cattle that had been too weak and scrawny for
Human
consumption. Not enough to feed the greedy fat
Humans
. Cade had been hanging out with Stephen, and like any young boys, they had played, hunting and rounding the animals up.

Only, Billy had suddenly been accused by
Humans
of stealing horses. He had had two of them, which was true. Cade and Stephen had seen them many times … but they were unwanted, frail things—too old for any use. Too slow for any need. But the real problem had been the mare. 

Others
weren’t allowed horses. To the
Humans
, horse meat was the gold of meat. It didn’t matter to them that the horses were useless to them. It was a matter of control and power. So, they had showed up with the Urobach then—fire demons.  He didn’t really blame the demons. The
Humans
controlled them, summoning and binding them with false promises of relief. What the demons—who were nothing more than children possessed by dark powers—didn’t realise was that ‘relief’, by
Human
standards, actually meant relieving them of their lives, or rather, the
suffering,
as they liked to call it.

It wasn’t the fire that had bothered Cade at the time. It was the sounds of the animals bleating, terrified, as the fire raged. He had seen the mare, fat, her swollen belly holding her unborn foal. She had been caught inside a circle of flames, and Cade could still smell the scent of the singed fur when he brought it to mind. The mare had bucked in terror, whinnying in a desperate call for help. But Cade had done nothing. He couldn’t. He was just a boy. He had watched as she had fallen to the ground, still alive when the Urobachs got to her. There had been no mercy for her. Only death. A painful death that echoed in Cade’s mind to this day. This is what they would do to the boy—if they found him.

Sweat beaded and rolled down Cade’s back, and he welcomed the coolness. The roar from the fire grew louder, although it was still far away. He tore himself away from the display of
Human
destruction and yanked the car door open. With another curse, he hastily lifted the boy and laid him on the backseat, then slammed the door shut and jumped into the driver’s seat.

The boy murmured something unintelligible from where he lay on the backseat. “Not long,” he murmured to him. “Not long.”

Cade forced himself not to slam his foot down on the accelerator and peel away the moment the car hummed to life But the
Humans
would hear that for sure, and then there would be two roasted wolves served up this evening. They’d fry them both in the car and ask questions later.

Cade rolled the car out of the parking lot, wincing at the sound of the tyres on the gravel. But he knew his enhanced hearing was why the sounds were so loud in his mind Thank god, the
Humans
were as deaf as they were stupid.

When he finally got to the road, relief was still far from him. They weren’t free just yet. He gripped the wheel so tightly that his knuckles turned white. He kept alert, his eyes searching every possible crevice and shadow the
Humans
could emerge from. His heart thundered in his chest as he approached the bridge, light at the end of the tunnel. Only, they weren’t quite there yet. Cade pulled to a stop. He slipped out of the car and crept to the bend in the road. A blue light flashed its beacon round in circles. A radio crackled, and he watched as the police flagged down a car to search it.

Cade was not getting home that way.

Chapter Four

Getting back into his car, Cade was at a crossroads, and not just the one in front of him, but the metaphorical kind. He’d watched as the
Humans
stopped cars, searched their boots, pulled the travellers out and asked them questions. The air around him was thick with the scent of burning trees and fire. Cade could go that way, across the bridge and to the heart of the lion. He could pull his car up and have the
Humans
search it and find the boy—the thing they were after. Would Cade be able to get out of this scot-free? He didn’t know. Giving up the boy would definitely stop a possible war tomorrow. He could sacrifice one to save many.

Perhaps he should just leave the boy somewhere. Prop him up against one of the graves in the nearby cemetery, or hide him in one of the mausoleums. Give the kid a fighting chance and buy him some time … providing the transformation didn’t kill him first. The
Humans
wouldn’t look in there, he was sure. They were as superstitious as they were thick. Yet, as he glanced in the rear-view mirror of his car at the boy lying on his backseat, he knew that neither was an option. What if this had been Danny? His little brother was just fifteen years old. Cade knew that if this had been Danny, he would want whoever had found him to take him in and protect him; to give him a chance to fight for his life. His father would want that, too.

Cade pressed the palms of his hands onto his eyes, making the world go dark. His head began to throb. What was right? What was the right thing to do? Hadn't he sworn to protect everything and everyone? Hadn't he signed up for that when he chose to work for the DSA? Wasn’t it his duty as a trainee officer of the law himself to protect all those around him,
Other
and
Human,
and now a half-breed? He was not justice. He was a protector and defender.

It had only been two weeks since one of their own had turned up dead. Just a boy—another boy. But he wasn’t like the half-breed. He had been pure and younger; at least half the age of the boy in the back of his car. And what had the
Humans
done to him? What had those fucking bastards gone and done? Cade ground his teeth at the memory. It had been him who had been called to handle it. He had been the one who had had to tell the mother what the
Humans
had done to her innocent baby boy. The
Humans
called
Others
monsters … How fucking ironic. They had taken the boy and put him on a gantry. Stripped him bare and made him scream. Cade hadn't been there, but he had heard the testimonies of witnesses. He knew how those screams sounded. Pain and fury flooded him as he recalled the boy’s face—or what had been left of his face. Someone had held him to the fires. They had seared half of his skin off and they had done it while he had still been alive. He was just a child, helpless and frightened.

Like the boy in the backseat now.

“Sometimes we have to make the decisions that will make the difference.” His best friend’s words echoed in his mind. Stephen was right.

“I’m just one person,” Cade murmured. He stared at the boy. “What can one person do?” But Cade knew the answer to that, too. One person was never just one person. You made the decision to do the right thing and took the first step. Then, gradually, others would follow. But someone had to be brave enough to dare. Somebody had to take that first step.

Cade glanced out at the darkened road ahead of him. He could cross the hill and bridge, hand the boy over, and go back to his life as normal. It would be so easy to do. Yet everything inside him violently rebelled against even the mere idea. He knocked the gears into reverse and turned the car around. There was a smaller road, a lane, which led to where Stephen lived. He didn’t stop to question his decision. Stephen was his best friend. He trusted him with his life. Smart and witty, he might like to put on a façade of nonchalance and sarcastic drollness, but no one could ever doubt his acute intelligence, or his great leadership qualities. As future head of the society, their people would follow him unquestioningly when his time came. And as crazy as Cade’s actions might seem to him right now, he knew that he could indubitably count on his friend’s help. 

Stephen didn’t live far. Most
Others
lived in areas together. Stephen still lived with his parents and younger sisters. Cade took the route slowly and cautiously. It would be just his luck to drive straight into one of the
Humans’
blockades and screw himself and the boy right over. Luckily, the way to Stephen’s was down the quiet lanes. It was dark. There were no streetlights to illuminate the way. The
Humans
hadn't come this way yet. The trees here still remained untouched and undamaged. But even with no
Humans
around, Cade kept his headlights low. He wasn’t about to risk alerting anyone to his presence.

The day’s fog had settled all around like a ghostly mist. Moths fluttered from the darkness and raced one another to the lights of the car as they beamed weakly through the white veil. Cade glanced in the mirror.

The boy was awake and staring right at Cade. His eyes were wide, piercing, his teeth bared. Cade’s heart lurched. “Shit,” he muttered. He knew full well the danger he had just found himself in. The hunger was awakening in the boy’s body, and that meant that the half-breed was very,
very
dangerous at the moment. His eyes had shifted, wild and bright, and his teeth were now that of his
wolf
... Cade swallowed hard and slowly pulled the car to a stop, all the while making certain to maintain eye contact.

He turned in his seat slowly, making sure not to make any sudden movements. His eyes locked with the boy’s, and the half-shifted child growled menacingly. His face contorted as he let out a guttural cry. His hand shot forward, fingers flexing as if they would break, and Cade ducked to the side to avoid razor-sharp claws.

“Breathe,” Cade said quietly, frustrated that all he could do was try and talk the boy down from the craziness going on inside him. Grabbing him or trying to hold him down would only incense him further. “Listen to me and breathe.”

The boy clawed at his face, gouging his skin until angry red lines marred the surface. Cade swore and fought the urge to grab his hands and stop him.  

“Listen to my voice,” soothed Cade. “Listen to me. Breathe in,” Cade sucked in his breath, loud, but slow so that the boy could hear, “and out.” He exhaled in the same way. After a moment, the boy followed suit. Relief washed over Cade. “That’s right. That’s it. Keep doing that. Breathe.”

A moment later, the boy’s head snapped back, and a sound that was neither
Human
nor
Other
rippled through the air, deep and feral. His claws dug into the upholstery of the seat in front of him and tore chunks away.

“Shit,” Cade muttered. They didn’t have time for this. He closed his eyes and centred on his own
wolf
, calling to him from the depths of his mind. The
wolf
rested on the edge, like resting the car at biting point. Cade’s own teeth began to shift, but he didn’t let them out fully. His eyes changed, though, the
wolf
responding to Cade’s call.

“Listen to me,” Cade rasped, his voice deeper now, a mixture of man and
wolf
. “Listen to me and
calm
.”

The boy thrashed about in response, tortured sounds emanating from deep within. Cade’s hands shot out and his palms connected forcefully with the boy’s. The child froze at the contact, his eyes fixing onto Cade’s as if in a trance.

“Don’t fight it,” Cade said slowly. “Don’t fight. It passes. I know what you're feeling ... that thing inside ... it’s a rage in your skin. It crawls everywhere.”

The boy’s face had almost transformed, but his fur hadn’t come through. The
wolf’s
snout was naked and deformed, a mixture of
Human
flesh on a
wolf’s
face. The boy raised his top lip, baring his teeth again.

“No,” Cade said firmly, shaking his head at him. “No.” He looked him straight in the eye, trying to reach the rational part inside the boy. “Close your eyes.”

To Cade’s relief, he obeyed. Closing his eyes as well, Cade searched for the young boy. “Follow my voice. Let me in. Picture me there with you.”

He felt the boy’s mind open, saw the
wolf
in there, small, a mixture of white and grey fur. It snapped at Cade in defiance, and Cade snarled in reply, staking his dominance over the cub. The young
wolf
snapped again, though a little more inhibited this time. Cade’s snarl became a deep growl, vibrating through them both. It held power and authority, and an underlying warning. The boy’s growl faded to a whimper, head bending in submission.

“Down.” Cade’s voice echoed between them.  He stared at the young
wolf
until he finally lowered himself to the ground in their minds, giving himself in to Cade’s authority completely.

When Cade opened his eyes, the boy’s hands were still palm to palm with Cade’s, but he was slumping forward, his head bowed. Cade let go of one hand slowly and then caught the boy as he collapsed. He was still awake, his eyes open and intent on Cade, but the wildness in them was gone.

“Shhh …,” Cade soothed. “I’ll be back in a moment.”

He lowered the boy onto the seat and then slipped from the car and into the darkness. He couldn’t be as quiet when he was in the form of a man. There was something elegant in his
wolf
that allowed him to stalk and creep. On two legs, it was much harder, but he lowered himself enough that the scents of the earth filled his nose—rotted leaves, fresh soil, the scents of small animals. He trained his hearing on anything moving close by. To the right, he picked up the small sounds of an animal. He moved slowly, letting himself meld into the darkness.

A small rabbit scampered out of the way—or at least it tried to—but Cade was fast. He snapped his hand out and caught it by the throat. Bringing it up to his face, he stared at the frightened creature for a moment. “Sorry,” he murmured. “Nothing personal.” And with that, he snapped the rabbit’s head. Death was instant, and merciful.

Cade moved swiftly back to the car. The boy had come round once more, and with no hesitation, Cade opened the door and held the rabbit out carefully towards the boy. He caught it with a growl and sunk his teeth into its fleshy stomach. Warm blood oozed down his chest, the scent hitting Cade and starting his own ravenous hunger. He had shifted this evening, but he hadn't hunted. He pushed the hunger away, pushed it right down. He had control—the boy did not.

The rabbit was devoured in a matter of minutes, the boy’s eyes rolling with the pleasure of his small feast. He slumped back into his seat with contentment when he was done, his face gradually returning to that of the boy. His bruises and wounds had healed somewhat, and his features were growing clearer.

Now all Cade had to do was get to Stephen’s with no more problems. He slipped back into the car, took a deep, calming breath and started the engine.

Chapter Five

It was amazing how much blood had soaked through from the boy’s clothes onto Cade’s shirt. Were Cade to be seen, by even just one person, he’d be royally screwed. They would run for the hills screaming bloody murder. In short, he’d be fucked.

He parked the car so that it was hidden in a line of hedges that separated the field from the lane—not that the lane really was a lane. It was simply a patch of grass that had been driven on so often, it had become compact and hardened. He parked a little way from the Davies’ residence, not driving right up and parking in the driveway as usual. Although he had debated it, the law of sod would surely be out tonight looking for victims, and Malcolm Davies would be certain to be the one to come out and see who had just pulled up. Then Cade was really fucked.

Malcolm Davies—Stephen’s father and alpha to the
Tigers
. But he was more than even that. He was the head of the
Were
Society and he held a seat on the Preternatural Council, which was as close as an
Other
could get to royalty. The council were the law, and the head of each
Other
community held a seat. The Society was devised of pack masters. All of these chains worked tightly together, and they acted as if they ran the world. Messing with laws was one thing; getting caught by Malcolm was another. He was a fair but stern man, and depending on which hat he was wearing on the day, would depend on the way he reacted to things. Cade didn’t know today which one Malcolm would be, but he sure as hell wasn’t about to find out and perhaps make the biggest—or even last—mistake of his life.

Cade walked to the back of his car and popped the boot open. He kept spare clothes for shifting in there. The
Humans
were ever amusing. They took great pleasure in burning or trashing a shifter’s clothing when they came across them—like it was some stupid Capture the Flag game. Stephen had once come back to his pile of clothes, only to discover that someone had defecated on them.
Real smart those Humans sometimes
...