Shiv Crew (20 page)

She couldn’t help but react to the sound.
Something primal within her woke up roaring in answer to the fading wolf
screams.

Beldane was in no way stupid or
weak. He knew the second cry of the wolf would make it a choice. She could
leave, or she could investigate that agonized howl. And he knew which one she’d
choose.

He began his shift before the howls
had subsided and rammed into her as she swung her gun around. The gun flew out
of her grasp, hitting the wall with a crack.

Fuck me for being off my game.

But she had her silver. Beldane
struck again, and instinct took over.

She was good—that was why she led
Shiv Crew. She thrust one shiv between his ribs and twisted even as she pushed
another into his stomach.

He’d landed on top of her, and as
the blades hit home, he twisted his head to the side and yipped in pain. He bit
the air, trying to reach her neck.

She heard a dim scream as he dug
his claws into her neck and realized it came from her. Her monster couldn’t
save her, or even heal her—she’d starved the fucking thing almost to death.

It was just her and the wolf.

And he was pissed.

Never panic.

Blood she couldn’t afford to lose
ran from her neck in a hot rush as she struggled to get out from under him. She
pulled one of the shivs from his ribs and sent it flying into a vulnerable part
of his face that he had left unprotected. His eye.

He screamed and shook his head,
trying to dislodge the silver she’d pushed halfway into his skull.

She scrambled out from under his
huge, hot body, rolling away as she pulled another shiv, this one a little longer
and curved at the tip.

That he was still fighting was a
testament not only to the strength of the wolf, but of its ability to take
damage it couldn’t when in human form.

She was in trouble.

There was no time to glance around
for her gun. The wolf jumped her, his hot breath burning her eyes as the knife-sharp
edge of his teeth grazed her cheekbone. Even that graze would slice her face
like a fucking razor blade.

She was good, but
he
was a
werewolf. And she’d given to Lex what her monster needed to make her more than
human.

Even refusing to take blood had
still made her better, stronger than a human. But she hadn’t just refused to…to
feed. She’d pretty much killed her monster.

She could admit that, now that she
was about to die.

She didn’t like the feeling of
being less than she usually was. Weak. Vulnerable.
Human.

For the first time in her life, she
ran.

He caught her though—flung her
across the room and stood staring at her, his little yellow eye glowing,
terrifying with the blade protruding from his other eye. He was weakened by the
silver inside him, but
fuck
, that bastard was strong.

Her left wrist snapped when she hit
the wall and began to swell immediately. Glad it was her left instead of her
right, she pulled her last shiv and waited for him to come.

He stood across the room, head low,
panting.

If she’d found his heart, he’d be
dead now. She couldn’t have missed it by much.

Maybe the bastard didn’t have a
heart.

“Come
on
,” she screamed.

He tossed his enormous head, and
came.

Her only chance was to make her
last shiv count. She was a drained, sick half human, but she was fucking
awesome with a shiv.

His teeth closed around her throat.
She shut her eyes and thrust upward, not seeing the spot she needed, but
feeling it.

Never panic.

She might die, but she was taking
him to hell with her.

He collapsed on top of her, his
weight enough to crush her, his teeth still half buried in her neck. She
couldn’t move.

But the bastard was dead.

She’d done that all on her own. No
monster needed.

Above her the ceiling began to
spin, slowly, and she would have vomited if she’d had the strength.

Was she dying? Maybe.

She wasn’t sure as she’d never done
it before.

Far below the house, the wolf
howled.

Hang on, baby.

She’d killed the wolf king.

Long live the…

Something was bothering her, urging
her out of her nice, comfy sleep. She finally figured out what it was—someone
was beating on the front door.

A cop’s knock.

She smiled.

“Alexander,” someone yelled, and it
took her a good half minute to recognize his voice.

Hard thumps sounded as he kicked
the heavy door, and in seconds it gave, splintering beneath the weight of a
berserker.

She heard his heavy footsteps as he
ran toward her. He plucked the wolf off her like so much garbage and slung it
against the far wall.

He didn’t speak, just knelt down,
slid his hands beneath her, and lifted her to his chest.

She opened her eyes once, found him
staring down at her with the oddest look on his face.

He balanced her easily with one
hand while he found his cell with the other.

“No,” she whispered. “No hospital.”

“Hush, girl.”

“Ellis saves me.” God, it was hard
to talk.

But he heard her. Hesitating for a
second, he told the operator he’d made a mistake, then gently laid her on the
couch.

She thought he was feeling her up
until it finally occurred to her that he was searching for her cell.
Right
pocket.
She wasn’t sure she was even speaking. Something awful was wrong
with her throat. With all of her. If Ellis would hurry…

He cocked his head as the distant
sound of a tortured howl drifted to them.

“Save her,” Rune whispered. “
Save
her.”

The next time she woke up she was
in her own bed with a bag of blood bringing her back to life.

Not just her, but her monster.

She’d missed the fucker.

“Ellie?”

“Déjà vu all over again,” he said,
smiling down at her.

“No, not really.” But she smiled
back at him, reaching for his hand before she realized her wrist was no longer
broken. “My monster is…”

“Fucking amazing,” he finished.
“And you’re to stop abusing the poor thing.”

She grinned.

“I mean it, Rune.”

“I feel pretty good. How long…”
Then she remembered the wolf. She began to pull the needle from her arm,
heaving her legs over the side of the bed. “Oh fuck!”

“What is it?” He knew better than
to try stopping her, so he began helping her.

“The wolf. The wolf in the
basement. Did they find it?”

He frowned. “What wolf?”

“Who was on the scene? I need to
talk to them.”

“Jeremy was the first one there,
then his crew followed him in. Strad said—”

“Oh God.” She dropped her head into
her hands.
Jeremy.

“Rune,
what
?”

“Everything is so complicated.”

He knelt down in front of her and
took her hands. “Tell me what you need.”

It was too late to go back to the
alpha’s house and save the basement wolf. Jeremy would have taken care of that.
Whether he’d saved it or killed it was something she’d probably never know.

Still, she had to try. “Get Jeremy
on the phone.” Then she thought of something else. “Wait. How did you explain”—she
motioned at the blood—“not taking me to the hospital?”

He stood, turning away from her.
“Rune…”

“Ah, fuck. Fuck, no.”

“I’m sorry, sweetheart.”

“Who knows?”

“Jeremy. Strad knows something is
up but wouldn’t pry. He’s a classy guy, Rune.”

But really, Jeremy already knew. If
no one else had discovered her secret, then nothing had changed. “The
berserker—he didn’t ask? Didn’t see me like this?”

Again he looked away.

“Ellis!”

“I’m sorry! He insisted. He was
coming in to check on you, and if I hadn’t opened the door he’d have kicked it
in. He was coming in no matter what I said.”

“He saw me like this? Healing and
with the blood?”

“He came in early. You were stabilizing
and still looked like death.” He smiled, and there was a spark of admiration in
his eyes. “Maybe he knows, maybe he doesn’t. But he…”

“What?” Despite herself, she was
interested.

“He has a thing for you.”

Her eyes widened. “You’ve lost your
mind. The berserker and I hate each other.”

“Uh-huh.”

“We do! Fuck you anyway.”

He laughed. “There’s also the
crew.”

She sighed. “Tell me.”

“They’re…well, pissed would be an
understatement.”

She wasn’t surprised. “What did you
tell them about this setup?”

“I told them the reports were
exaggerated, that my mother had visited you, and that you were doing great. But
they’ve been working with you for years, honey. They know there is something
different about you.”

She closed her eyes. Things were
changing too fast. “Get me Jeremy, then call the crew in. I have to catch them
up.” She hesitated. “I still don’t trust Strad, but I need to ask him what
happened there after I was taken out.”

“You want me to have him come over
with the gang?”

“No, no. Just…forget calling
Jeremy. Get Matheson on the phone.”

Ellis grinned. “Yesterday you were
hurt severely. Maybe even fatally. Today you’re sitting up on the bed wanting
to bark orders at everyone. You rock, Rune.”

“Yeah. Back to normal.” But she
winced as she touched her throbbing throat.

“How
are
you feeling?”

“Not the best, but give it a few
hours. Considering I was nearly decapitated by a wolf, I’m doing pretty damn
great.”

He called Strad and handed her the
phone. “Be nice.”

“You mean be myself?”

“No,” he said. “Not so much.”

She grinned.

The berserker answered on the first
ring, his voice tense. “Is she worse?”

She took the phone from her ear and
stared at it for a minute, confused until she realized she was on Ellis’s phone,
and he’d have seen that name on his display.

“Oh. No, it’s Rune. I…I’m fine.” She
cleared her throat. “I wanted to thank you for saving my life.”

He remained silent.

“Anyway, I need to know exactly
what happened in Beldane’s house after I was taken out. What did RISC do in
there?”

He sounded calm, polite. “I wasn’t
there for most of it.”

Of course not. He’d been at her
house peeking at her as she lay wounded and unconscious with Ellis’s stash of
blood running into her veins. “But Jeremy must have updated you.”

“What exactly are you trying to
find out?”

He was a smart berserker. She
sighed. “Before Beldane attacked me, there were howls coming from somewhere in
the house. A basement, I think. Did they find a wolf?”

“You asked me to save her.”

She frowned. “I did?”

“Yes.”

“And
did
you?” She glared at
the wall. Why did he make her drag every little piece of information from him?

She could almost hear his smile. “I
did.”

“Yes! Who is she? Is she all right?
What the fuck had that son of a bitch been doing to her?”

“I’ll come to visit you soon and
will explain.”

She groaned. “
Fuck
me.”

He sounded shocked. “What?”

“It’s an expression. Like,
oh
shit
.”

“Hmmm.”

She took a deep breath and tried to
ignore that she was as awkward as hell when having an actual conversation with
him. “I’ve been hearing some bad shit about Jeremy. You’re his lac—on his team.
I don’t suppose you’d be willing to talk about him when you get here?” She was
not up for a visit from the berserker.

His hesitation was almost audible.
“No.”

“Yeah. I didn’t think so.”

“Some things you need to stay away
from, Rune. Just do your job.”

She could taste her disappointment.
“That’s bullshit. Even you have to realize that.”

“The community would be better
served with you alive.”

“I don’t plan on dying. But I’m not
going to sit on my ass and let things happen I know are wrong.” She shifted the
phone to her other ear, her hands shaking. “We swear to protect, and I’ll be
damned if I’m going to treat that like it’s an option.”

His voice was soft. “You’re sworn
to protect the
humans
, Alexander.”

That was when she began to remember
she hated him. “That won’t change. But not all humans deserve protection,
Berserker, and I’m going to destroy the motherfuckers.”

She hung up before he could say
another word, furious with him for proving he was still Jeremy’s man and even
more furious with herself for thinking, for one unguarded moment, that he might
be one of the good guys.

Shiv Crew was at her door not an
hour later.

“Let us in, Ellis,” Jack said.

“I will break the door down,” Raze
added.

Rune stood beside Ellis in the
middle of the living room, her fingers pressed against her lips. Dammit, they
would
break the door down.

“Give me time to get back in bed,
then let them in,” she whispered, as though her crew might hear her through the
door.

Still sore, she sprinted into the
bedroom and climbed into bed, pulling the sheets up to her chin and turning to
the wall.

In a few moments she heard them
tiptoeing into her bedroom, whispering back and forth as though their yelling
and banging on the door earlier had never happened. Her crew—noisy? No way.

Z leaned over the bed and put a big
warm hand on her shoulder. “Sweet thing?”

She fought to keep her eyes closed
and her breathing even.
Don’t call me sweet thing.

“How is she doing, Ellis? Has she
spoken?”

“We heard Beldane nearly took her
head off,” Raze said.

“Is that true?” Jack asked.

“Listen, guys, it’s like I told you
already—a hundred times. He did a number on her, but he’s the one who’s dead.
Rune will be fine. She just has to rest and recuperate.”

“Yeah,” Levi said, and she realized
she’d come to know the twins well enough so that finally she could tell which
one was speaking. “She’ll be fine. She does seem to do a great job at healing
herself. And others.”

Sarcasm from Levi? The little shit.

“Okay, guys. You came, you saw, you
spoke. Now get the hell out before you wake her.”

Inwardly she grinned. Ellis could
be bossy when he needed to be.

They filed out of the room
obediently. She thought about throwing off the sheet and coming clean, but in
the end couldn’t bear to. She’d hidden her monster for too long.

The only way her monster was coming
out from under the bed was if someone dragged it out using chains and whips and
lots of coffee.

She must have been weaker than
she’d thought because she drifted off when the boys left and didn’t wake up
again for five hours.

She yawned and climbed out of bed,
disoriented but determined to get dressed and get something done. “Ellis?”

He’d left a note stuck to the
dresser mirror, letting her know he’d be back later that night and for her to
call him when she woke up. He’d left her some dinner in the fridge.

She tossed the note on the dresser
and started to head for the shower, but she got a glimpse of herself in the
mirror.

Pushing her hair away from the left
side of her neck she frowned as she examined the teeth marks still remaining.
The alpha had scarred her.

She had other scars, but lately her
monster had seemed to wipe the slate clean when he healed her. But not this
time.

After she’d showered and wolfed
down the dinner Ellis had left her, she finally did the one thing she’d been
putting off. She called Jeremy.

He answered on the first ring.
“Rune. How are you?”

“I need to talk to you. It’s
important.”

He was silent for a moment. “What
about?”

“About the Dark Others. About this
Preston dude. You did promise to keep me updated. And…” She hesitated. “Someone
saw you having sex with a wolf. And told me you’re abusing female Others.”

It was harder than she’d thought it
would be, accusing him. She was almost positive he was abusing the female
Others. Look at what he’d eagerly done to
her.

When he fucked her, when he cut her
up, he was just taking out his hatred on one more Other.

Her heart thumped in her chest with
a beat that was heavy and painful. She had fresh blood in her and though that
usually put her on top of the world, all the blood in the world wasn’t going to
be enough to compete with the stress she’d lived through recently.

She’d let him abuse her because she
was a fucked-up mental mess. And as shameful as it was, she still craved it.
Not the abuse, maybe, but how she felt afterward. God, the relief. She grabbed
a bottle of water from the fridge and drank half of it, waiting for him to say
something. Anything.

Finally he did speak. “Rune, I am
so sorry you’ve been dealing with shit like this alone. You should have come to
me.”

“What do you mean?”

He sighed. “Come in. Talk to me.”

“Are you the abuser?”

“Of course I’m not.” He sounded so
hurt, offended.

She closed her eyes. If he was the
abuser, he wasn’t going to tell her. But Amy hadn’t been sure. “I’ll come in.”

She loaded up with silver and a gun,
grabbed her keys, and headed out the door. Almost surprised to find it dark,
she took a moment to breathe deeply of the cold night air before walking to her
car.

She noticed an unfamiliar car parked
directly across from her house. She stood at her car, fiddling with her boot
while surreptitiously checking out the vehicle.

There was a glow of red from a
cigarette. One occupant for sure, maybe more. And they were watching her house.
Fuck it.

She drew her gun with one hand and
a shiv as long as her forearm with the other, and marched toward the car. She
wasn’t in the mood to be screwed with.

She reached the car and beat on the
window with her gun, a little surprised—and disappointed—when the glass didn’t
break.

The windows were tinted. She knew
she was being reckless and idiotic, making herself an easy target for whatever
lurked behind the dark glass. She recognized her post-injury, post-blood
attitude.

She really didn’t give a fuck.

She put the gun to the window when
it remained up, and reached for the door handle. It wasn’t locked. She yanked
it open.

Gun ready, she peered into the car
as smoke rolled out into the open air. It wasn’t tobacco smoke. “Who the fuck
are you?”

Two women in the front and a man in
the back. All were relatively young, the driver around thirty.

“I’m sorry,” the driver said,
holding up her hands. “We didn’t mean to scare you.”

Rune raised an eyebrow. “Lady, do I
look scared?”

“No,” the man in the back said,
“and you don’t smell scared either.”

The girl nearest Rune was scared,
though. She had wispy blonde hair and large eyes that looked gray in the light
from the pole lamps. Her lips pressed together in a tight, straight line, and
her hands shook as she held them up. She flinched away from Rune’s gun.

Rune pushed the gun a little farther
into the car. “Somebody better start talking.” Before she’d finished speaking a
scent hit her brain, and she barely refrained from sniffing the air. “You’re
wolves.”

The wolves traded looks. “Yes,” the
driver said. “We are. Marc Beldane was our alpha.”

“Ah,” Rune said. “So you’re here to
what, get revenge?” She almost smiled. The wolves smelled weak. Weak and puny.

Her thoughts threw her when she
realized what she was thinking.
Fucking monster.
And for the first time
in her life that silent, familiar refrain was said with the tiniest bit
of…affection.

“No,” the man in the backseat said.
“We want no revenge. Marc was a cruel and terrible master.”

“Kiddies, I’m in a hurry. Just tell
me what you want.” Sensing no threat, she holstered the gun and the shiv.

The blonde girl’s voice was light
and breathless. “You took our leader. We’re unprotected and at the mercy of
every group in River County.”

“And
outside
River County,”
the driver added.

“Got it. Tell me who’s bothering
you, and I’ll pay them a visit in the morning.” She motioned for the joint, and
when the blonde hesitantly handed it over, put it to her lips.

Again the little group exchanged
looks but not because she was smoking their weed. “You don’t understand, and
you’re not going to be thrilled when you do,” the man said. “But you killed our
leader. You’re responsible for us now.”

“You’re our new alpha,” the driver,
sounding almost apologetic.

Rune gaped. “Yeah…
no
.” She
handed the weed back and took a step away from the car.

“But you—”

“Yeah, I know. I killed your daddy,
etcetera. But I’m not a
wolf.
”

“That doesn’t matter as much as
you’d think,” the blonde said. “We can’t be left unprotected. It’s your fault
we are.”

“At least,” the driver said,
perhaps trying to be a little more diplomatic, “lead us until we get a new
alpha.”

“You’ll need time to get used to
the idea,” the dude said. “Can we come back in a few hours and discuss it further?”

He leaned forward, out of the
shadows, and met her gaze. “It’s only a matter of time before bad shit starts
to happen.” He hesitated, then continued bravely on. His voice was firm, but desperation
lit his eyes. “We need you, Rune.”

Fuck
. I don’t help monsters. I
kill them.
Right. Why did it suddenly seem like the humans were now the
monsters? She sighed. “Come back later. We’ll see what we can work out.”

Their relief was palpable. She
wondered, as she watched the taillights disappear down the street, what the
hell she’d gotten herself into.

Rune Alexander, half-human Shiv
Crew leader and werewolf alpha. It was funny.

Only not really.