Valen stepped aside, clearing the way for Aaron.
“Thank you for trusting me,” Aaron said, the words barely audible. He clicked his tongue and moved his heel. Tentin began to walk. Aaron waited until he was close to the village before he began to hum.
Whether he did it for his own amusement, to help settle his nerves, or to make it seem as though he had no suspicions about being watched, Valen didn’t know. He kept Aaron and Tentin in sight, creeping behind them.
When they entered the village proper, Valen was ready for an attack, but none came. He skirted to the right, following a line of shadowed areas beside various decrepit buildings.
Aaron kept up his merry tune, and while the village wasn’t large, it seemed to take him forever to reach his parents’ house.
He dismounted from Tentin and almost fell. “Darn it,” he muttered. “Stupid leg.” He took his cane from the saddle roll and tucked it under his arm as he leaned against Tentin.
The door to his father’s house opened. Anita poked her head out. “Aaron! You’re back! I didn’t think you’d return from the shi—”
“Mother! I’m so glad to see you. Could you help me get Tentin tied?” Aaron spoke loudly, much more so than he normally did.
Valen slipped around the side of their house. He whined softly. Anita stepped outside, leaving her door wide open.
“Of course I can help you, son. Your father is inside getting ready for bed. Just let me call him out here. He’ll want to see you before he goes to sleep.” Anita took the reins. “Go in,” she muttered to Valen. She moved Tentin over so that the horse provided a visual obstruction when combined with her and Aaron’s bodies.
Valen ran inside and collided with Walter.
“What the—? Oomph!” Walter went down hard.
Valen couldn’t shift in time to stop him. Fortunately, Walter rolled and missed bashing his head on the stone floor. He looked warily at Valen.
Scooting away from the door completely, once Valen knew he wouldn’t be seen by anyone outside, he shifted. “I think you’re about to be attacked by the same humans that killed my father and several of my pack.”
Walter blanched. “You do realize that we’re humans too, that Aaron—”
“This isn’t about that,” Valen snapped, slashing a hand through the air. “I am aware that the acts of those who murdered my loved ones aren’t the acts of every human. Now stop trying to start a philosophical debate and get ready to fight!”
“You?” Walter asked then quickly shook his head. “No, you said the ones who’d attacked your pack. Valen, we aren’t a fighting people. We have few weapons.”
“They used fire, and a…a flame accelerant of some sort,” Valen said as Aaron and Anita entered.
Anita locked the door and leaned on it. “What’s going on?”
Valen and Aaron filled them in quickly. “These—” Valen stopped himself from saying humans. That wasn’t the divide he was making. “These people are murderers. I believe they killed simply to steal the food we had stored.”
“We don’t have food stored,” Walter protested. “Even our gardens have been unproductive more often than not. You can see that none of us has eaten well lately. All we have is—”
“Water source, and shelter.” Valen nodded more to his own realization than to those around him. “They won’t burn you out.”
Anita closed her eyes. “They’ll just kill us and take over.”
“They probably wouldn’t kill everyone.” Valen assumed it was possible that anyone they deemed attractive be kept. Young children, too, perhaps to be used as slaves. Anyone seen as a threat or unwanted for whatever reasons, would not be spared. “But if it’s a food shortage they’re using as an excuse, then—”
A long, strident howl pierced the night. Valen went still as he listened. “That’s Candace. She’s on the north point.” He’d barely finished speaking when howls rang out all around them. “Get your people. Gather them somewhere safe, somewhere not easy to burn to the ground. Try to keep them together so if my pack has to come down here to finish our business, they don’t mistake your people for the murderers we’re hunting. And keep Aaron safe.”
“I’m not hiding,” Aaron said. “I’ll fight.”
Walter stepped in front of Aaron. “We’re all going to hide, and fight only if that’s what we must do. Of course we’ll get out of the shifters’ way first.”
“Let us do our part, Aaron,” Valen requested. “We are better prepared for this. If any of them slips past us, then kill them.”
Aaron nudged his father aside. “I won’t argue. I’d just slow you down. Go, and I promise to use my head.”
“No unnecessary risks. Don’t take off the talisman Lanaka gave you. It could save you,” Valen warned.
“Same.” Aaron touched Valen’s. “Come back to me.”
“Always.” Valen pulled Aaron into his arms and kissed him—a quick, fierce claiming before he had to leave. The howls had become interspersed with barks and shouts. “Be safe.”
“You too.” Aaron clutched at his arm. “Valen, I—”
Someone pounded on the door. “Walter! Mom! What’s happening?”
“Matthew. Let him in and me out.” Valen shifted as Anita undid the locks. As soon as she had the door opened, Valen darted out, pushing past a startled Matthew.
“I love you, Valen,” he heard Aaron shout. “Keep that with you!”
Valen yearned to go back and kiss Aaron again, and maybe to tell him he returned Aaron’s feelings. He couldn’t. Now was the time to protect, and to avenge his pack.
Valen ran for the nearest conflict. He veered behind the house and put every bit of his strength into moving faster. When the crumbling rock fence was the last obstacle in his way, Valen easily jumped over it. Around him he heard sounds of battle, smelled death and fear and more.
He nearly ran over the first of the murderers he was looking for. Taller than Aaron’s people by about six inches, but just as lean, the man was clad in fresh wolf skin. Not from his pack, but it added to his fury regardless of that fact.
Valen snarled and avoided the swing of the man’s knife. He didn’t toy with his prey, as much as he wanted to. Valen ripped his thigh open, tearing out a great chunk of flesh. There was the artery he was after. Blood sprayed out in an arc. Valen didn’t wait for the man to die. He would, very soon.
Candace and the other four shifters were fighting a person each. None of Valen’s pack was injured, at least not severely.
Valen didn’t worry about fighting fair or one on one. These were murderers, and they were dangerous. They had taken from him, from his pack, and they would do it again with no hesitation.
Aaron’s life would mean nothing to them. It meant everything to Valen.
He shot around behind one man and took him down by severing his Achilles tendon. Blood squirted on his fur before he could get out of the way. He left the death blow to Candace, and moved on to help the other three shifters. In less than a minute, Valen was leading them on to help the rest of the pack.
There was an obvious odor to the ones they hunted. Smoke and an acrid tang of unwashed flesh. Apparently the canoes were the only things the murderers ever put in the water.
It made them easy to find when they tried to hide.
Valen’s fear that there would be children among them proved unfounded. Either these people did not reproduce, or they’d left their children elsewhere. Any other potential scenarios were ones Valen didn’t want to think of.
After clearing the eastern side of the land by the village, Valen counted twenty-two dead. There were seven men and women in various state of fighting to the south. With as many shifters as there were, Valen didn’t interfere.
He led his pack of hunters down into the village. “
Spread out. Check for anyone who may have gotten past us.”
His growls and barks had everyone splitting up into the same groups he’d assigned them outside the village.
When he picked up the rancid scent of several prey headed toward Walter and Anita’s house, Valen’s wolf took over. There was no planning, no coordinating attacks. There was only death, and he was bringing it to the ones that deserved it.
Chapter Thirteen
Heart pounding, Aaron stood back to back with Matthew, each of them wielding knives too short to be called swords. They weren’t sharp, either. They could still be deadly. If Aaron could only bring himself to shove the blade into a chest or an eye or belly.
“You really should go back,” Aaron said to the biggest of the man leering at them. Someone had called him Rusty.
“I’m not afraid of you.” Rusty raked him over visually. “There’s nothing to you but skin and bones.”
“And you’re any better?” Aaron retorted. “Gods in the skies, you reek.”
“Guess they don’t know what soap is,” Matthew added.
Rusty held up a very sharp, very long sword. “Don’t need soap when you got this.” With his other hand, he grabbed his crotch and jiggled it.
Aaron scowled at him. “What does that nasty thing have to do with soap?”
Matthew snorted. “It’s likely never seen it, just like the rest of him.”
At least Mother and Father got away.
They’d been out getting the other people up and armed. Matthew and Aaron had been supposed to meet them in the old stone silo that hadn’t been used in decades. All Aaron had wanted to do was put Tentin up in the barn. He’d been foolish. Valen would be disappointed in him.
And Aaron really didn’t want to die. He knew that now, when faced with three men and two women who all looked like they’d enjoy hurting him.
Well, he wasn’t going to make it easy for them.
“I bet even soap would run away from that dick.” Matthew apparently wasn’t going to, either.
Aaron had never heard his brother say that word before. It made Aaron giggle. His nerves may have contributed, too. “You really do reek. I can’t imagine how taking your clothes off wouldn’t make it worse. It would expose the stink there to air and spread it around.”
“Shut up, you little fool.” Rusty spat at him. It landed on Aaron’s foot coverings.
Aaron was appalled. “That’s disgusting!” He tried to spit back but his mouth was once more dry.
“They’re all disgusting,” Matthew said in a cheery tone. “And murderers. We heard about what you did. Do you know, the shifters are going to be here soon?”
“Surely you heard their arrival calls,” Aaron tacked on.
Rusty shrugged. “Don’t really care. We can hold our own just like we did when we raided that pack.”
Aaron should have maybe felt sorry for him, but he couldn’t. “You attacked while they slept, just like you’re trying to do now. It won’t work here.”
“Seems to be working fine.” Rusty spat again, this time hitting Aaron right on the chest. “No one is gonna stop us. You two aren’t any kind of trouble.”
“We are if you fight us with honor, one on one.” Aaron didn’t stand a chance that way, either. It was the only thing he could think of to possibly keep from having all five of their opponents pounce on them at once.
“Is that right?” Rusty laughed. “Damn good thing I don’t care about honor.”
“You should.” Valen stepped out from behind the barn. His eyes glowed yellow. “But if you had, you wouldn’t have attacked my pack, and not in such a cowardly way, either. You hid, like the shit that you are, low to the ground, looking for something to stick to because you haven’t got the ability to take care of yourself or your own. Where are your children?” As he spoke, Valen had slowly walked closer. “Tell me that, you piece of shit.”
Rusty didn’t answer. He took a step back, which put him closer to Aaron. The other four people who’d come with Rusty were glancing nervously from Valen to Aaron and Matthew.
“Don’t have fire with you, hmm?” Valen observed. “Not facing a sleeping pack. In fact—” Valen paused and wolves appeared as if by magic, the darkest ones especially. They came from behind the barn, and kept coming. “You’re facing the families and friends of those you murdered.”
Rusty turned and ran at Aaron. What his thinking was didn’t matter. It could have been simply that Aaron looked like an easier kill. “Take them out,” Rusty shouted.
“As he said,” Valen told his pack. “Leave the redheaded one for me.”
Aaron heard Matthew grunting, felt him moving and knew he was fighting. Aaron’s knee still ached, but not so much that he couldn’t put his weight on it and lean over to avoid being run through.
“Ow!” Matthew bellowed.
“Hah,” Rusty laughed. His laughter turned to a gurgle as a wolf leaped onto his back, crunching down on Rusty’s neck. Rusty’s eyes bulged and his tongue flopped out as blood spilled from his lips. He fell forward, and Aaron pivoted sharply. The sword slid between the cords of his necklace, the tip embedded in the leather pouch.
“Gods,” Aaron said before he twisted around and dislodged the sword. The wolf whipped Rusty back and left him there. Aaron was going to help Matthew. He should have known, with as many wolves as there’d been, his help would be unnecessary.
Matthew panted and held his left arm against his chest. “I would like to know how I got jabbed in the back.”
Aaron reached for his arm. “What’s wrong? Did you get hurt? Is it a cut?”
Matthew snorted. “No. My forearm’s sore from holding the dratted knife up for so long. That’s pathetic.”
“I’ll say.” Rivvie strolled over dead bodies and looked at Matthew. “You’re cuter this time than when you were being an asshole.”
Matthew’s shock was clear as he gasped, his mouth hanging open.
Rivvie pushed on his chin and closed Matthew’s mouth. “My mother always says you’ll catch flies like that. Who’d want those things buzzing around? Could you imagine the sound? It’d make your ears ring. Probably your brain, too.”
“Aaron.” Valen had his arms wrapped around Aaron a second after he spoke. “I almost got you stabbed when I took Rusty out. I’m sorry. My balance was off. I was too angry.”
Aaron rested one arm on top of Valen’s and used his other hand to hold up the talisman pouch. “You were right. This saved me, although probably just from another nasty cut. The tip of the sword stuck in it. I wonder what she put in here?”
Valen rubbed his cheek over Aaron’s. “I wouldn’t open it to check. Where is everyone?”