Last Wolf Hunting

It still amazed him that this was actually happening. That he was on his way back to the pack of werewolves who looked on his half-human heritage as a stain, an aberration—something that made him less than worthy. Because of his past, he knew it was a mistake to tempt fate by going back to the mountaintop town of Shadow Peak, the place the Silvercrest called home. But he didn’t have a choice. He’d drawn the shortest straw among the Runners, making it his mission to catch the traitor who was tempting Lycans to turn rogue, to hunt innocent humans as prey, and teaching them how to dayshift. Rogues were dangerous enough bastards on the best of days, but show them how to take the shape of their beasts beneath the heat of the sun and they became that much more difficult to hunt down…not to mention kill. Jeremy figured he should know, considering his scars were still healing from his last run in with a group of them.

And now he could sense that Jillian was near. The woman who was meant to be his lifemate. The woman who was meant to make him complete.

As if, he silently snarled. Instead, this dark, seething need for her only made him feel hollow and raw, as if a part of him had been peeled away and amputated. He wanted so badly to ignore her existence, to forget, but it was impossible. And god only knew that he’d tried. For a long time, he’d mistakenly thought he could bury his memories and anger and bitterness in a warm, willing body. But no matter how eager or solicitous his bed partners were, he’d never been able to move past the fact that they weren’t the one he truly wanted.

Pathetic. And now look at him, practically panting as he tried to breathe Jillian into his system like a drowning man gulping at air.

Maybe he’d have been able to handle it better if he’d had more time to prepare, but the chain of events that set this night in motion had come hard and fast. A mere seven days ago, Mason had defeated the rogue werewolf Anthony Simmons in a challenge to the death. The Bloodrunners had gathered that next evening at Mason’s cabin and drawn straws to determine who would return to the pack to track down the traitor—the one who had been controlling Simmons. Like a bad joke, Jeremy’s straw had been the shortest, and in a nightmarish daze, he’d found himself going before the Silvercrest’s governing body, the League of Elders. He’d submitted his rogue kills, claiming his right to rejoin the pack as a full-fledged member, then served as best man at Mason’s wedding. That had been two days ago—and here he was, on his way home. He’d barely had time to pack and settle things at his cabin, much less get his head in order.

Rubbing one hand against the back of his neck, Jeremy shuddered as a soft current of air suddenly slithered across his skin, leaving a spray of goose bumps in its wake. The cool eastern breeze snaked its way through the swaying trees, ruffling his hair as the wind caressed his face and arms with another eerie stroke of warning. Go back, it seemed to whisper within his ear. Go back, while you still can.

Pine needles crackled beneath his booted feet as he shook off the unsettling sensation and navigated his way through the last thick fringes of the forest. They were getting close. Up ahead, his keen eyesight allowed him to make out the hazy glow of the torch-lit clearing where the Silvercrest werewolves conducted business better suited to the wild than the civilized atmosphere of their secluded town, built on private land a few miles up the mountain.

A half minute later, the sounds from the clearing reached their ears. It was obviously a Challenge Night, just as Dylan Riggs, the youngest Silvercrest Elder and unlikely friend to the Runners, had informed them that afternoon.

“We’re almost at the clearing,” Cian muttered at his side, lighting another cigarette by pressing the end to the glowing orange tip of the first. “I’m not ashamed to say that I always hated this place when I was younger. It gives me the creeps.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean.” Jeremy lifted his head and sniffed the air. It was thick and heavy with tension, all but cloying against his skin. Tonight’s fight must be an unusual one, he thought with a wondering frown. Male agitation rose sharply on the wind, but with the women it was sizzling and swift, like a burning fuse.

It was imperative that he stay alert and concentrate, but Jillian’s scent grew more intense the higher they hiked, revealing her explosive emotions at the same time it messed with his head. She was scared tonight, on edge, filled with an overwhelming sense of dread, but Jeremy knew she’d be putting on a brave face for the pack she considered hers, though she was witch, not wolf.

The women of her bloodline had served the Silvercrest werewolves for centuries, gifting them with their powers. When her mother, Constance, stepped down from her place as Spirit Walker, Jillian had assumed the vital role of healer and spiritual leader of the pack. He knew they loved her, respected her and looked up to her, though she was still a young woman of twenty-eight. And why shouldn’t they? She’d given her entire life to them. Hell, she’d even turned her back on him for the sake of her precious pack of werewolves.

“That sounds like one hell of a fight,” Cian murmured.

He grunted in agreement, his sense of foreboding growing stronger, edgier.

Low grumblings from the onlookers now provided a steady background of sound, layered beneath the harsh breaths of the opponents as they battled against one another, the occasional howl belted out by the crowd scraping across the calming sounds of the forest like sharp blasts of a weapon.

“Give up, bitch,” a woman’s guttural voice sneered, “and I just might let you die easy, instead of ripping you apart, piece by piece.”

Jeremy’s eyes went wide at the realization that the opponents were female. It wasn’t unheard of for one woman to challenge another, but then it wasn’t exactly common, either.

“What a delightful-sounding shrew,” Cian snickered, his lips twisting into a wry smile as he pretended to shudder. “Reminds me why I’ve vowed to remain eternally single.”

A high-pitched cry rent the air in the next instant, echoing through the forest, and that same voice snarled, “Oh, yeah, you’re mine now.”

He bit back a curse, thinking that voice sounded suspiciously familiar. “It’s Danna Gibson,” he stated flatly.

Cian sent him a comical look of disbelief, then chuckled softly under his breath. “Christ, your luck just can’t get any worse.”

Jeremy had to agree. This night was going to be awkward enough without running in to one of his old girlfriends, especially Danna. Not that he and the Lycan had ever had anything serious. He’d dated her a handful of times when he was younger, before Jillian had come home from school and he’d felt the call of a lifemate for the little witch. After that, Jillian had been the only woman he was interested in. But his reputation as a young man who enjoyed his sexual variety had been hard to shake. The girls he’d had flings with in the past, like Danna, had been jealous of his sudden, possessive interest in Jillian, and her parents had simply hated his guts. Rumors about his so-called continued sexual conquests had kept the gossipmongers busy, but he’d tried to ignore them, focusing all his attention on getting the shy Jillian to give him a chance.

Instead, it’d all blown up in his face, and in the end, it’d been Danna who Jillian had accused him of fooling around with the same day he and the little witch had shared their first and only kiss. The same day Jillian had told him she was finally ready to give a relationship between them a chance, after having fought what was between them for months.

Months that had felt like goddamn years, Jeremy had wanted her so badly.

After he’d left the pack, he’d heard that Danna had gone on to marry a small-brained, chauvinistic jerk, and been miserable ever since. Tonight wasn’t the first time she’d challenged another female—and if her husband’s track record was anything to go by, it wouldn’t be the last. Magnus Gibson was like a dog in heat, slobbering after anything with a pulse.

Jeremy shook his head in disgust. If it was a true match based on love, the males of his kind were never tempted to stray from the loyalty pledged to their wives…but when couples were married without belonging to one another both in heart and soul, well, the rules of nature changed. Sad, but all too true.

“I wonder what the hell’s going on up there.” He cut Cian a questioning look from the corner of his eye, but the Irishman lifted one shoulder in a hell-if-I-know gesture, his attention warily focused on the warm glow of light up ahead.

“Whatever it is, I’ve got a bad feeling about it,” the Runner grunted, a deep crease seated between his ebony brows.

“Yeah. Me, too.”

When a new voice, soft and smoky and lilting, rang out through the night, Jeremy nearly tripped over the gnarled root of a sprawling oak tree. “For the last time, Danna, I did not touch your mate.”

Oh, hell. The voice behind those words knocked the air from his lungs like a vicious kick to the chest. Jeremy slammed to a jarring stop, while senses already sharpened to precision revved into overdrive. His mind didn’t want to accept it, but his body knew the truth.

It was her.

Jillian.

He was close enough to scent the damning details now, everything narrowing into a concentrated focus that had him pulling in angry gulps of air, greedy for every drop he could take in. The sensory intake was shocking and almost painful in its intensity, the heat of her lush little body, all hot and angry from battle, nearly doubling him over, while panic suddenly had him exploding into action.

He shoved a low-hanging branch out of his way, wondering what the hell she’d gotten herself into this time. Even though Jillian had the blood of a wolf flowing through her veins, the fact she was witch made it impossible for her to shape-shift. Danna was twice Jillian’s size and as vicious as a pit bull, not to mention underhanded—no doubt the Lycan was cheating like hell.

And what in god’s name was Jillian doing fighting one of her own wolves?

Vaguely aware of Cian at his side, Jeremy’s booted feet moved faster with the speed of his thoughts, until he finally broke through the last yards of the forest at a full run, erupting onto the edge of the clearing in a blur of movement. Then he nearly staggered to his knees, his legs all but crumpling beneath him as he took in the scene playing out before him like some kind of macabre nightmare.

Jillian Murphy stood in the center of the Challenge Circle—beautiful, brave and bleeding.

And she was about to die.

Chapter 2

Jillian glanced his way for a startled second, before jerking her attention back to Danna. Jeremy realized that although shock had dried up his ability for speech—leaving a gaping hole of cold, jarring disbelief in its place—he’d made a sound. A dry, choking kind of noise, like a wounded animal. It didn’t matter that she was covered in dirt and sweat, her temple bloodied and her left cheek scraped raw. She was perfect and sexy and a part of him. Hate. Hurt. Pain. In that moment, none of the injustices of the past mattered.

My mate, he thought with a possessive snarl, realizing that he was growling low in his throat, drawing curious stares from the members of the pack who had gathered to watch. “Did you know about this?” he growled, cutting an accusing look at Cian. “Did you know Jillian was fighting?”

The Irishman arched one dark brow. “Do you think I’d have been late getting to the Alley and almost missed seeing something like this if I did?” the Runner drawled with a slow smile. “Not bloody likely, boyo.”

“Just keep your damn eyes off her. I don’t want you looking at her.”

“And how do you plan on stopping me?” Cian laughed, clearly goading him.

“Don’t push me,” he warned in a deadly rasp, working his jaw. “Not tonight, Hennessey.”

No, tonight he had no control. It’d just been stripped away by the sight of Jillian Murphy engaged in mortal combat with a Lycan.

It was painfully obvious he was going to lose her—but he couldn’t grasp the concept, like something slippery and slick that kept wriggling through his fingers. He struggled to get his mind around it, but he might as well have tried to grasp an ethereal trail of smoke, or the puffy white confection of a cumulus summer cloud set within the deep rich blue of the sky.

None of this was right! Had everyone in the pack lost their goddamn minds? Spirit Walkers did not fight their own wolves. To challenge a witch was one of the greatest taboos throughout all of Lycan culture, right up there along with eating your neighbors and shape-shifting in the middle of Time’s Square on New Year’s Eve. If the wolves were expected to survive in the modern world, rules had to be followed. If they weren’t, their way of life would come crashing down around them faster than a house of cards.

No, Lycans didn’t challenge their own Spirit Walkers. Jillian might be wolf in spirit, but her body was all too vulnerable when it came to physical demands. Even in her human shape, Danna towered over Jillian’s lithe five-five frame. And Jeremy had no doubt that Danna would press her physical advantage.