“It’s going to be okay,” she whispered. “I called for help.”
The wolf blinked again and this time, his eyes were green.
Bay’s eyes. Human eyes
.
It lasted for only a split second and then they were gone, lost in the black abyss that was the wolf. But obviously the wolf no longer wanted her dead. “Shh,” she crooned, her gaze drifting to the wound. She didn’t even know where to begin to stop the bleeding. But she had to try. Had to do something. Sitting here holding his paw wouldn’t keep him alive. “Hang on, I’ll be right back.”
Eden glanced back at the forest. There was still no sign of the troll. Hopefully that particular monster had no intention of coming back. Then, briefly curling her fingers into the fur just below Bay’s chin, she pulled away and sprinted up towards his house. The door was unlocked. She couldn’t think of many people in Mercy Pass who ever bothered to lock their doors. In this town, you couldn’t misplace a shoe without everyone knowing. Between the long drives between everyone’s houses and the fact that one person’s business was everyone’s business, they had no real fear of theft.
Eden hurried back down the hall, remembering the direction of Bay’s bed and the attached bathroom. She found the towels in the closet in the hall just before the bedroom, but none of them looked big enough. Stuffing two under her arm, Eden strode into the bedroom and ripped the top sheet off the bed. If she had to swaddle him like a baby she would. As long as it meant she stopped the bleeding. Or at least slowed it.
Eden hurried back outside and was just hurrying down the steps, having to grip one rail so she didn’t black out and fall to her knees, when Dee’s truck pulled up, the tires spitting snow as it jerked to a stop. She tossed the blankets onto the snow besides Bay as Kennedy hopped out, a bag in one hand. Dee raced across the yard, only to skid to a stop at the sight of the wound.
“Jesus.” But as fast as the flare of panic had flitted across her face, it was gone. Dee thrust the bag at her and moved to take control. Before Eden could register what was going on, Kennedy had already settled in to work.
The wolf lifted his head to snarl once, but Eden sank to the ground by his head, cradling his muzzle in her lap. Instantly, the beast quieted. Dee looked up at her over the length of white-furred body. “We should probably muzzle him. I could show you how to tie a makeshift one out of gauze.”
A dark rumble sounded from the wolf, his lips curling back to reveal teeth.
“No.” Eden ran a hand down Bay’s neck. “It’s fine. Trust me.”
Kennedy paused, for the barest hint of a second, then nodded, trusting her. After that, time blurred together. A haze of red and white, the two colors twin flashes across her vision until she couldn’t see one color without seeing the other. Exhaustion and pain ate at Eden, but she didn’t dare stop. She alternated between helping Dee and holding Bay, keeping his beast steady and under control.
She didn’t know exactly when Rowan got there, but suddenly Ro was at her side, pressing her back down next to Bay. “Don’t worry. I’ll help Dee, you just keep him calm.”
Eden blew out a ragged breath and leaned down, her face pressed into the side of Bay’s neck, breathing in the scent of his fur.
“You’re going to be okay,” she whispered again and again, her words faint and breathy.
Her fingers trailed circles over his muzzle, until finally, Kennedy knelt next to her. With one hand on her shoulder, Dee squeezed gently. “Eden?”
Bleary eyed, she looked up. The snow was still crimson with blood, and red flecks decorated Bay’s fur, but the wound down the length of his side was wrapped in dark blue bandages. Hope flared and she looked at Dee.
“I think he’ll be okay. He’s one tough...werewolf.” The last word came out a bit faint and she shook her head. “Besides, some of the wound had already started to heal. I stitched him up the best I could, bandaged what I couldn’t, and gave him some pain meds. The rest is up to him.”
“You think we could get him inside?”
Kennedy’s eyes widened at the question, her gaze flicking between Bay and Eden. “He’s the size of a grizzly. Short of a crane I don’t think we’re moving him until he can walk.”
“Okay.” Eden started to get to her feet and swayed. Rowan caught her by the elbow and held her steady so she didn’t fall.
“Whoa there,” Rowan whispered. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“I was just going to go get some more blankets. I’m not leaving him.”
“You need to see a doctor yourself,” Dee said. “Let Ro take you. I’ll stay.”
“No.” Eden started to shake her head when both of her friends scowled at her.
“Not an option.” Ro’s hand turned firm against her elbow. “You don’t get a choice here. You were swaying on your feet when I got here and you don’t look any better now. If anything your lips are as white as the ground we stand on.”
“In short, you look like hell,” Kennedy said. “I helped him. All he’s going to do now is sleep. Go.”
She thought of arguing, but one look at the wolf in front of her—the slow rise and fall of his breathing—and her will to fight died. He looked content. Peaceful. And completely out of it. “Okay. But call me if he wakes before I get back.”
Kennedy flashed her a smile. “Of course,” she promised.
Leaning into Rowan, Eden nodded. “Okay then.”
Together, they managed to hobble to the car with Rowan supporting most of her weight. She leaned back into the passenger seat and looked back, only to see Kennedy squatting down beside Bay, her small hand stroking down the wolf’s neck. He wasn’t alone.
Content with that knowledge, Eden closed her eyes and let the throbbing pain in her chest lure her away to sleep.
Zeke woke to darkness, an unending black abyss that seemed to wrap around him. It left him cold and he shivered. The idea that he’d died flitted through his head. He remembered the blood, the woman.
Fuck. A vampire?
Maybe he’d gone off the deep end in a big way. He felt himself breathe and cool air washed down his throat, filling his lungs. It revitalized him.
Not dead then.
A vibration rippled through his body and somewhere in the distance Zeke heard a sinister growl pierce the shadows. He stirred, trying to move, but his body didn’t respond. Panic wedged into his throat, only to feel the muscles in his thighs tense and flex. Suddenly Zeke was moving, a fast, jaunty movement like a jog but he had no control.
He struggled, panicking, and for the first time he felt something
else
in his head with him. It felt sticky, wrong. Malevolent. Suddenly, Zeke felt his body jerk to a halt, the darkness unwavering, but he strained to see, to move out of the shadows and back into control. A blood thirsty bitch, wolves the size of small cars, fuck, at this rate he’d probably been possessed.
It would have been laughable, crazy, except Zeke wasn’t sure of anything at the moment. He’d lost his mind or, hell, he didn’t even know. Some wicked fairy tale book had finally spewed out into reality?
“Bali,” a woman said and he recognized the voice. The vampire-bitch from the other night. At least, he thought it was the other night. At this rate, he wasn’t sure how long he’d been out of it. “Come here.”
His body obeyed even as Zeke scrambled to put the brakes on. Didn’t his stupid ass body have any sense of self-preservation? She’d tried to kill him once, and here he was, waltzing up to her without a care in the world. He was dead now. No escaping or fighting it this time, not when he couldn’t even control what his body was doing
before
she got a hold of him. He was definitely possessed then.
A hand landed on his shoulders and Zeke wanted to tense, to flinch away. Instead, he found himself leaning into her touch, her fingers stroking through his fur.
Wait. Fur?
Zeke concentrated and sure enough, he could feel the soft caress of her hand down his side, stroking through thick fur. The angles were all wrong too, his body was different.
Then the demon in possession of his body seemed to relax, the malice rippling off the other spirit eased, and Zeke saw a light in the darkness. It flickered, like candlelight in one of those old street lamps, flickering under a heavy night wind. Zeke mentally stretched towards it, not wanting to push too hard and let the demon know he was still alive in his own head.
Snow and trees flitted past his vision and then, finally, Zeke could see out. He could see a slumbering white wolf curled up at the base of a pine tree, the snow-heavy branches curling down towards the ground. Zeke found himself leaning into the woman’s touch, a pleased rumble sounding from him and the knowledge startled him.
Pleased?
But the moment he thought it, he knew it was true. The demon was happy.
Emotions wafted off the other thing inside him and this close to the surface, Zeke could feel them. Then his head tilted back and he stared up into the eyes of Hell herself. Satan wasn’t some pitchfork-tailed, red-skinned devil that cartoons had made him out to be. He didn’t even have a dick.
He
was a
she
, Zeke decided. With blood that dribbled out of her lips, and eyes the color of coal. Pitiless, black. She smiled down at him.
“Sweet Bali.” Her hand curled into the fur behind his ear. “I thought it would take longer to wake you. My power was so weak.”
She leaned down and laid a kiss across his muzzle. Then, as if seeing it for the first time, Zeke became aware of the long black snout sprouting from his face. He remembered the other wolves, all white, circling her that night. Was he one of them too?
And
wake him?
She’d tried to kill him.
Branches snapped and Zeke found himself spinning, every muscle in his body suddenly lock-tight. Rage spilled out from the demon and it moved to stand between the thing crashing through the trees and its mistress. With certainty, Zeke felt the knowledge sink through him. This demon, it was the woman’s protector. Her guardian.
Her weapon.
The last thought flitted through his mind in a cold certainty that left him bone-chilled. She’d used this demon before and it’d done vile things. Things Zeke couldn’t see, but he could feel the black taint that leeched upon the demon’s soul. So she’d what? Killed him so that she could bring this black demon wolf back to life?
And why wasn’t he dead?
Then a huge white monster broke through the trees, blood streaking down its side, and Zeke felt the demon relax, drawing Zeke’s attention back to the here and now. It was a friend then, at least to the demon. But, still, his body didn’t move from his position in front of her, fully prepared to take on the danger—if any arrived.
“What happened?” Morrigan said, furor jolting through her voice and Zeke felt it like a crack of lightning striking home in his chest. Anger pulsated from her, and the demon—her
Bali
—snarled with it.
“Went to fetch your errant wolf.” The troll looked down at him, then nodded. “Bali.”
A kinship suddenly stretched between them, a knowledge of an alliance. Of more heinous crimes. An image of a child lifted in the air, the troll’s jagged-toothed mouth crunching down on the small body. Blood at Bali’s paws. Zeke wanted to be sick, he
wanted
to feel bile and vomit curl in his throat, feel the nauseous twist of his stomach.
But this wasn’t his body anymore.
And the demon he now lived inside didn’t find the troll disgusting. He’d done things just as evil.
“We’ll get my wayward wolf back soon enough. Regardless, his part is done. He is irrelevant.” Her hand curled under Zeke’s chin and she tilted his head up. “I have my Bali, my
alpha.
I only need one wolf before my guardians will be complete. Then I’ll be able to wake the rest of our people.”
Elation swept through Bali and Zeke shuddered against the flare of emotion. It was as close to joy as a demon could get, but the feeling came with a sadistic edge. Zeke knew that the people she would be waking would be more like the monster he lived inside now, more like the child-eating troll standing next to him. Monsters. True, sadistic monsters unlike anything the world had seen.
“First, I need to wake Fahlow.”
The omega
. She leaned down and stared into his eyes. “Bring me someone, Bali. Someone good enough to balance our pack.”
She let him go and Zeke found himself running through the forest, bloodlust simmering in his gut. Zeke fought, twisting in his mind, but if the demon felt his presence, he wasn’t bothered. Then the forest broke way to an open lawn, a small farm house set off to the center. Zeke screamed in his own mind, frustrated and helpless to stop the monster that stalked across the yard.
The demon was going to take someone else and there was nothing Zeke could do to stop it.
***
Pain pulsed through Bay with every pounding thud of his heart. He felt liked he’d been gutted and the moment he tried to roll to his feet, the dizzying lance of agony that speared through his side and up into his head told him his guess probably wasn’t that far off. The last thing he remembered was the troll ripping into him and Eden flying through the air.
Eden.
Bay staggered to his feet and reached for the thread of humanity inside him. His wolf didn’t even bother resisting, instead, letting him take control and shift them back to normal.