Authors: Heather West
Chapter 25
“The war is over,” Bradly proclaimed as the clan gathered around the fire later that same morning. Tawny stood on the outskirts of the gathering to watch, holding tightly onto Matt’s warm hand. A pleasant breeze tousled her hair, still damp from washing in the river with Matt earlier. They’d had just enough time to clean up and dress in some fresh clothes before the meeting.
“We will have a winter’s supply of food by the end of the day tomorrow, and when the soldiers return to their homes they are going to find the authorities waiting to arrest them for serious crimes against their own kind. The Path is no more! The Cold Foot Clan is triumphant once again!”
The shifters cheered in unison, a great cry of relief and victory.
“There were, however,” Bradly’s voice became suddenly remorseful, “several of us that did not return. Others were wounded, but are expected to fully recover. Although our losses were small considering the battle, we will vow not to forget the sacrifice made by those who gave their lives for ours.”
He shifted his weight, gazing quietly over the clan. “The vast majority of the enemy surrendered and returned home; there were relatively few losses of life. We should keep in mind that many of those men came to battle because they believed that we pose a threat to their community. They were lied to about the real purpose of the fight, and we need to remember that all of our losses were due to the selfish behavior of only a very few men.”
Some grumbling rolled through the crowd, but settled quickly.
“Now,” Bradly continued, “Let’s rest and make plans to retrieve the meat that The Path has accumulated.”
“I could sleep for days,” Matt whispered into Tawny’s ear. His breath tickled. “I need to meet with the council to plan to steal back the cured game, but I’ll meet you back at the cabin in a few minutes, okay?”
Tawny tenderly kissed his cheek, then his lips. “I’ll be waiting. We need to find a creative way to celebrate our survival before we go to sleep.”
He grinned, his eyes soft and excited. “You can count on it.”
Tawny slipped through the crowd, working her way to Matt’s cabin. She crept warily inside, peering around in the darkness. The cabin was small, with a bed in one corner and a table in another. Tawny shut the door behind her and timidly wriggled out of her clothes. It made her nervous to be completely naked when she wasn’t familiar with the cabin, but that feeling also aroused her tingling interests. Briefly, she wondered if she had the right cabin, and tried to assure herself that she knew she did — or at least, she was pretty sure.
The long minutes dragged on as Tawny padded around the cabin, nude. She toyed with ideas for sex, eyeing the rafters overhead and searching the cupboards for rope. For a while she lay on the bed, staring up at the roof, tickling and teasing herself as she thought about Matt. As her finger began to play with her own clit she forced herself to stop, concerned she might relieve the tensions before he came to relieve them for her.
She heard heavy footsteps on the porch outside and scurried to one of the little wooden chairs. Straddling it backwards, she faced the door, the back of the chair holding her trembling thighs wide apart, exposing her wet softness for Matt.
The door burst open and Tawny gasped in horror as a man leapt inside — not Matt, but Thomas.
She tried to scream, but the noise stuck in her throat as he lunged at her, knife in hand, across the room. Tawny scrambled to get away from him, tripping as she clambered out of the chair. Her heart sank with dread as she felt his strong hands grabbing her and pushing her, face-first, to the floor. She felt the cold blade touching the back of her neck, and she went quiet with terror.
“Make one sound and it’s all over,” Thomas snarled. “You have one chance at surviving this, little girl, so you’d best do as you’re told.”
Tawny nodded, frightened tears filling her eyes. She lay there limp and placid as he tied her hands securely behind her back and yanked her to her feet. He grumbled mean, acrid profanities as he dragged her to the door, his total disinterest in her nudity humiliating her as much as the nudity itself.
“Don’t make a sound,” Thomas warned as he pulled her from the cabin and led her into the nearby woods.
She gave muffled cries as her bare feet stumbled over sharp stones and rough branches. She could feel the bushes scratching her skin, but she was forced to hurry through as Thomas dragged her behind him. Her gut wrenched as she saw the Colt .44 wedged in his pants behind his back, nestled next to two grenades. She remembered the silver bullets.
“That boyfriend of yours is going to be sorry he ever met you,” Thomas growled.
A few long minutes later, the two of them stood atop of a small hill overlooking the council meeting below. Tawny glanced down the other side of the hill to see a short, rocky drop-off, with no chance for her to make an effective escape. Thomas lashed her hands to a young tree, leaving her naked body fully exposed. Her sore feet ached, and she could feel the sticky blood drying on her toes.
Thomas pulled her close and she yelped as the ropes tightened around her tender wrists. He held the knife at her throat, a frustrated but victorious grin on his face.
“What’s your bear friend’s name again, bitch?” he whispered.
Tawny hesitated, watching longingly as the council spoke among themselves, oblivious to Thomas. She saw Matt there, calmly discussing new plans and basking in the recent victory.
The blade pressed tighter against her skin, and she whimpered.
“Tell me his name.”
“Matt,” Tawny said, her throat dry and sore.
“Matt!” Thomas screamed down along the hill.
The council looked up, then most of them scattered to hide behind trees or cabin walls. Several moved out, working quickly and quietly to evacuate the area. But Matt stood, his eyes black with rage, and glared at Thomas.
“If you want her alive,” Thomas yelled, “you get your hairy ass up here and negotiate her release.”
Tawny watched through tears as Matt fidgeted, assessing the situation.
“You need to hurry — I’m getting impatient,” Thomas yelled down.
“If you hurt her,” Matt yelled in response, “I swear I will tear you into pieces too small to interest the rats!”
Thomas bellowed a dark laugh. “I could easily slit her throat, beast, and by the time you made it up the hill I’d be gone into these woods. Or, if you come up here, we can talk about my very reasonable demands. She could be free in less than ten minutes. No one needs to get hurt.”
“He has a gun!” Tawny screamed desperately.
“Shut up!” Thomas hissed, shaking her violently.
“It’s a trick!” Tawny continued. “It has silver bullets!”
Thomas smacked her on the cheek, and her head went fuzzy for a second as she nearly passed out.
“Not another word,” Thomas warned. “I’m not playing games here.”
He turned to look back down the hill at Matt. “Are you coming up here to talk or not?”
“Either way, you plan to kill us both,” Matt replied, “but you expect me to make it easy on you?”
Thomas screamed in fury and grabbed Tawny by the ear. She whimpered, closing her eyes tight as she felt him press the knife blade against her earlobe.
“Wait!” Matt called out. “I’m on my way up — don’t hurt her!”
Tawny peeked out to see Matt hurrying up along the hill. She could see Thomas reaching behind his back, his pale fingers wrapping around the Colt’s grip like sinister little worms.
“No!” Tawny screamed in horror. “Damn it, Matt, he’ll kill you! Just let him cut me up, please!”
But Matt continued clawing his way up the hillside. She knew he’d soon be well within range.
Thomas was losing interest in her, and held the knife back a few inches from her head. She twisted in a desperate attempt to reach the gun, her numbing hands grasping blindly for the pistol, but it remained out of reach.
Her blood turned icy cold. Instead of the gun, her fingers had found the two grenades Thomas had on his belt. She went quiet, and the noise and confusion around her suddenly seemed muffled and distant. The world was no longer there — even she wasn’t fully there anymore — and she resigned herself to the inevitable.
Tawny calmly felt up the grenades, her fingers slipping in through the pins. With a quick tug they came free easily, and she tossed them down the slope. They made a faint clinking sound as they struck the rocks below.
Everything was in slow motion, like a bad dream. Thomas looked down the hill to see the pins land several feet down the hillside. His eyes went wide in panic and he dropped the knife to grab frantically at the grenades.
Terror filled Matt’s eyes as he saw Thomas grabbing at the grenades. Tawny could see in his face that he understood what she had done.
These were her final few moments, the last of her existence, and Tawny felt a gloomy smile touch her lips. Time seemed to drag on forever. For a brief instant everything was alright, and her heart calmed serenely. She drank in the last seconds of sunshine on her face, of gentle, cooling breeze. This was her last act, and she was oddly content with it.
But then she saw Matt lunging forward, falling to all fours and shifting fully to a bear before his paws struck the ground. Pieces of his tattered clothes flew in different directions as they tore from his bulging body.
Thomas pulled the Colt from his belt and fired at the hulking bear as it bounded toward him at a furious pace. With the other hand he fumbled clumsily for the grenades.
Tawny saw a bullet strike Matt’s shoulder; a red ooze sprayed out, but he continued to run toward them, his large eyes hot with rage.
Several more shots rang through the mountain air, but Matt was undeterred.
Thomas just managed to pull the grenades from his belt as Matt reached the crest of the hill, shoving Thomas over the edge of the cliff with terrifying power, his ferocious roar echoing from the distant hills.
In midair and with blind desperation, Thomas flung both grenades with a long sweep of his arm before he tumbled down the hill, toppling roughly over the rocky ledge below.
He landed with a sickening thud and reached up to clutch his injured head. Tawny watched as Thomas opened his eyes to find that one of the grenades had rolled down the hill after him and landed only inches from his face.
Matt reared onto his hind legs and wrapped his huge bear body against the tree, covering Tawny from the blast. She couldn’t see the grenades as they detonated, but the almost simultaneous explosions left a low ringing in her ears. Matt yelped as he was hit with a piece of shrapnel, his body shaking the entire tree. Tawny hurt for him, but secretly enjoyed the unmatched power of his shivering animal body.
Chapter 26
Tawny was anxious as she waited, staring blankly at the ashes in the fire pit. She eyed the cabin, her stomach twisting. It had been an hour or more since the last time she’d heard any sound, and that was Matt’s low pained roar. At last Bradly emerged, his face grim but stern, and he came over to sit beside her.
“He’s going to be fine,” Bradly sighed. “We pulled out the shrapnel and the silver bullet. The grenade wounds will be healed by tomorrow, but the bullet wound will take weeks to heal. It’s lucky that the crazy soldier only hit him once, and just in the shoulder. It could have been much worse.”
Tawny smiled. “Weeks to heal is okay,” she said, relief washing over her.
Bradly clasped his hands together in his lap and looked up to admire the sky. “I’ve spoken with the other council members,” he said.
“About what?” Tawny fidgeted on the rough log.
“About you.”
“Are you still going to kill me?” Tawny pressed.
Bradly chuckled. “You know, we’ve never actually put anyone to death here. To be honest, I’m not certain we could even if we had to. So no, we’re not going to put you to death.”
Tawny shrugged and looked around the little village, studying the tents and small cabins. “But I’m not allowed to leave here, right?”
Bradly took a deep breath. “That’s what we had to discuss. It seems there were some council members who felt as though your willingness to sacrifice your life to protect Matt demonstrated strong loyalty on your part. If you would die to protect him, you’d probably keep your mouth shut about us for the same reason — I suppose.”
Tawny gave him a curious glance and waited.
“And,” he went on, “considering that Matt was willing to die for you as well, that seemed to indicate you’re sort of... well, one of us now.”
Tawny couldn’t contain her smile. “How many of the council members felt that way?”
“All of them,” Bradly muttered staring down at the ground. “We all agreed, Tawny — you’re welcome to come and go as you please. You’re considered a member of the clan, if you like.”
“What about your code?” she pressed, mentally kicking herself for bringing it up.
Bradly made a pained face, then shrugged. “Nothing’s really written down, it’s all just kind of general ideas and guidelines. Besides, somebody just made up the code to begin with anyhow. We can make up our own minds, code or no code.”
“So… ” Tawny couldn’t contain her excitement, “I’m in?”
He laughed, then nodded. “You’re in.”