Savage (3 page)

But they didn’t have days or weeks. Katelyn needed Cordelia to be on her game right now so that they had a hope of surviving the next few minutes.

“Do you think we lost him?” she finally whispered.

“I don’t know. I hope so,” Cordelia whispered back, caution in her voice. “We have to get out of here.”

Something warm covered in fur fell on top of Katelyn and she let out a shriek. Panic rocketed through her, followed by blinding pain.

She could hear Cordelia calling her name, but she couldn’t answer, not with her teeth lengthening and her face elongating. Her vision seemed to telescope and her other senses went into overdrive.

I’m changing, I’m turning into a wolf.

Her nails scrabbled for a hold on the bark, gouging trenches as the bones in her thumb broke and her hands began to reshape themselves into paws.

Paws that could rip into the hide of a deer and dismember it. Paws that could churn up the earth as they carried her along. Paws that were absolutely useless to her up in a tree.

She started to tumble sideways but caught herself with a yelp. She was slipping, falling.

And then she finally heard what Cordelia was saying.

“—raccoon! We’re safe. It was just a raccoon. Please don’t change, just calm down, deep breaths.”

A raccoon. What had fallen on top of her wasn’t a wolf or a Hellhound. And with that knowledge planted firmly in her brain she felt herself regaining control. Her thumbs broke once more, and she yowled with agony but gratefully got a firm grip on the branch again.

And then her vision returned to normal and she was staring at an angry Cordelia.

“You can change without the full moon and you didn’t even tell me?”

“I-I can’t. It starts to happen sometimes when I get freaked out, but I can’t control it,” Katelyn said.

Cordelia frowned, skeptical. “How is this even possible? You’re way too young, both as a wolf and as a person, to be able to change without the moon.”

“You’re asking the
wrong
person. If I knew, I’d tell you,” Katelyn insisted. “It’s just one more thing I have to try and guard against.”

Cordelia’s face was white. “Did my father know? Is that why he brought you here?”

“No one knows. Except you.”

An irrational desire to beg Cordelia not to be mad at her caught hold, but she held her tongue as she thought about how Cordelia had constantly apologized for things that weren’t her fault and how it irritated Katelyn. It was a wolf’s desire to be submissive, to want its place in the pack to be secure.

But Katelyn was more than a wolf and she didn’t have to do as she was told. Not with Cordelia.

Not with anyone
, she corrected herself. And with Lee Fenner dead, she realized that there was no one left in the Fenner pack whom she truly feared.

Cordelia turned her head and Katelyn twisted to follow her gaze through the smoke. The night sky was a corona of orange embers and scarlet flares.

“Look. A truck,” Cordelia muttered.

She was right. It was Justin’s Ford, barreling through the woods, heading, presumably, for the road out of the swamp.

But there was something wrong. Now, above the steadily increasing whine of the motor, Katelyn could hear screaming.

“What is
that
?” she asked Cordelia.

Cordelia gasped. “It’s
him
!”

A split second later Katelyn saw it, too. It was a black shape that was darker than the darkest night, large and grotesque. The Hellhound.

And it was bearing down on the truck.

“No!” Katelyn shouted, jumping to her feet.

The branch vibrated beneath her and Cordelia wrapped her arms around it to keep from falling.

The Hellhound reared up; it was as large as the Ford. And then it slammed into the side of the vehicle. The truck flipped and rolled a couple of times. Katelyn stared in disbelief, unable to look away.
Not Justin. Don’t hurt Justin
.

But the creature had disappeared again.

She swung down to the lower branches and dropped to the ground, then took off running toward the truck. Cordelia hit the ground behind her.

The Hellhound might kill me. Maybe it’s waiting to lure me out, using Justin for bait.

She couldn’t care about that now.

Wood crackled and popped. A few people had been in the bed of the truck and had been thrown free. She dodged around one body, not even stopping to see if the woman was alive or dead.

As she reached the truck, Cordelia trailed behind her, hanging back out of sight of the Fenner pack mates. It had to be agony for her, Katelyn realized, even as she swept the cab, searching for Justin.

Cordelia’s brother-in-law Al was behind the wheel, stirring slightly and groaning. He was alive. His wife, Arial, was also inside, blood on her blonde hair. Usually so glamorous, she was disheveled as she groaned and began to stir.

Sudden growling in the bushes just behind the bumper caused Katelyn to jump back several steps. Cordelia grabbed her arm and they quickly retreated toward the trees they had been hiding in a minute before, just as Justin burst into the clearing right next to the truck.

“I wonder where he’s been,” Cordelia whispered very softly.

Katelyn could only nod as she saw him checking the people who had been thrown clear of the bed of the truck.

“We can’t be spotted together,” Cordelia whispered again.

They moved quickly but silently away from the accident scene. Katelyn kept thinking that at any moment one of the Gaudin pack was going to find them, or Justin would bound up behind them.

What she didn’t want to think about was where the Hellhound had gone.

“Now what do we do?” she asked Cordelia.

Cordelia looked tired and pale. She kept scanning the firestorm, searching for the Hellhound. And . . . maybe someone else. It was hard to tell.

“I don’t know,” she admitted.

“I’ll tell you exactly what you’re going to do,” a male voice boomed close at hand.

Katelyn gasped and whirled toward the sound. She wasn’t sure who she wanted to see least, a Gaudin or a Fenner.

The bushes a few feet away parted and the speaker appeared. He wore a brown robe like a monk with a hood that draped his face in shadow, though his eyes seemed to be glowing a brilliant, electric green.

Beside Katelyn, Cordelia stiffened. Katelyn’s own muscles quivered. There was a buzzing in her ears. Cordelia bared her teeth, her muscles coiled, and Katelyn knew she was about to spring.

The man lowered his hood.

He was older than them, probably by five or six years. His scalp was completely clean-shaven, and his skull was tattooed with numerous crosses and at least one snarling wolf’s head. There was something completely and utterly disturbing about him and Katelyn couldn’t say why, but she didn’t want to look directly at him. It was as though facing him squarely somehow
hurt
.

Cordelia whined deep in her throat and Katelyn wondered if he was having the same effect on her.

“You’re a Hound of God,” Cordelia said.

Katelyn remembered hearing about the Hounds of God, a religious werewolf order that had sounded completely insane. They believed their ancestors had been changed into werewolves through rituals so that they could descend into hell to fight demons for God.

He inclined his head with an air of satisfaction, as though he was pleased to be recognized.

“I’m Magus, follower of Daniel Latgale, alpha of the Hounds of God. We are God’s chosen knights, and we do His bidding in all things.”

His voice was husky as if he were hoarse from shouting. There were tattoos on his neck, and Katelyn wondered if something had happened to his vocal chords.

Smoke swirled around the three of them, and Katelyn was about to tell him that whatever he had to say, he’d better tell them on the run. Then he spoke.

“I’m here with a message.” His eyes narrowed, and he jutted out his jaw. Then he pointed at them both. “If you don’t end this now,” he said, “there will be hell to pay.”

3

KATELYN LOOKED FROM
Magus to Cordelia and crossed her arms over her chest.

“‘Hell to pay’ means what, exactly?” she asked.

He shrugged as if his meaning was obvious. “No less than this: If you two don’t find a way to end this destructive conflict and unite your packs, the Hounds of God will rain fire down upon you all and wipe you from this earth.”

“Fire is already raining down on us,” Katelyn said. “And if we don’t get out of here—”

“You’re not listening to me,” he interrupted her. “We will destroy you all.”

Cordelia made a low, growling sound.

“Are you honestly warning us that if we don’t end this war, then there’s going to be another war with
another
pack? A third pack?”

“Not a war — a purging, a cleansing,” Magus corrected. “We won’t fight you. We’ll just end you.”

Fingers of ice played along Katelyn’s backbone. “You’re Hellhounds,” Katelyn said.

“No. We fear the beast as much as you do.”

“Then you know he’s real,” Cordelia said, sounding the tiniest bit vindicated. Most of her family had scoffed when she had insisted that she had seen the Hellhound outside her bedroom. Katelyn couldn’t help but think that none of them would ever laugh at her again.

Magus slipped his hands into the sleeves of his brown robe and squared his shoulders, as if he were posing, posturing. Katelyn told herself that he was just a guy in a costume.

“Of course we know he exists. He is the Devil’s servant, given free rein to walk among us and kill those whom he wills, those who have been unfaithful, who have strayed,” he said.

“Oh, my God, who writes your lines?” Katelyn blurted, but the quaver in her voice threatened to give her away. She was afraid of him.

“Don’t mock me.” He looked at Cordelia. “You know I wouldn’t be here if we weren’t serious.”

She paled and gave Katelyn a quick nod. “The Hounds of God are . . . intense.”

Katelyn frowned at Magus. “Why us?” Did he know about her immunity to silver?

“Why
not
us? I’m pack royalty,” Cordelia interjected swiftly. “We were already vying for pack leadership when this war broke out.”

I wasn’t.
But as Katelyn looked from him to Cordelia, she wondered if she should be. But those were questions for another time. They had to leave the blazing forest.

“Kat!” a voice called. “Kat, are you here?”

It was Justin. He couldn’t find her and Cordelia together. And until she could figure this all out she didn’t want him seeing Magus either.

“We need to go,” she said to Cordelia. “
Now
.” As if to underscore her sense of urgency, a burning tree limb detached and swung back and forth a few yards to their right, sending showers of sparks and chips of burning wood into the sky.

“I’ll drive you home, Katelyn McBride. You and I have a lot more to discuss,” Magus declared.

“Like what? What do you have to say to her that you can’t say in front of me?” Glowering, Cordelia took Katelyn’s hand. “We’ll get out of here
together
,” she said. “And if you want to talk to us later, you can leave a message.”

“That’s not your decision,” Magus said, removing a clenched fist from his robe.

There was something in it. He raised a brow as he regarded Katelyn. Something he wanted to show only to her, she translated. She ticked a glance toward Cordelia, whose head was turned as she scanned the forest. Justin was still calling for her, but his voice was fading; he was moving away from them.

The heat from the fire buffeted her. They were risking their lives by sticking around to talk and Magus was scaring her. She began to walk away from him and he reached out, not quite touching her arm. But there was such a sense of presence about him that she felt as if he had made contact.

“Katelyn,” Magus urged.

“No one calls her that,” Cordelia snapped, glaring at him.

“Someone does,” he replied, and her hair stood on end. Trick called her that.

The voice in her head did, too.

There was no way Katelyn wanted to be alone with Magus, not even for a second.

“Cordelia! Cher!” someone called.

Cordelia started and her eyes widened. “Oh, my God. It’s Dom. I have to go. He can’t catch us together, either.”

There was the barest flush on her cheeks — eagerness to be gone, or to be with Dom? Cordelia’s relationship with Dom Gaudin was equally as complicated as her relationship with her father had been. So much for the ruthless simplicity of pack dynamics that Justin was always going on about.

“Wait.” Katelyn took Cordelia by the arm, and led her to an untouched pair of trees. She planted herself in front of Cordelia so Magus wouldn’t be able to read their lips. Werewolves had excellent hearing, but their eyesight was keener. She had to risk some blunt talk. If they were supposed to avert a catastrophe, they shouldn’t be on the opposing sides of the current war.

“Cordelia, come home with me. Come back to Wolf Springs, and the pack.”

Cordelia pulled her arm free and hugged herself. “Are you crazy?”

“They’re your pack. Things . . . have changed,” Katelyn insisted. It was as close to referring to Lee Fenner’s death as she was willing to go with Magus so close by. It was obvious that he was trying to eavesdrop rather impatiently while at the same time keeping an eye on the fire.

Cordelia’s brow furrowed and she looked back into the forest as if her answer lay there. “My sisters haven’t changed.”

“Katelyn, we have to leave,” Magus called.

“Their status has,” Katelyn countered. “Did either one of them accompany your father when he met with you and Dom at the bayou? No. Justin did. Your father made it clear that he trusted Justin most of anyone in the pack.”

“Or else my daddy just wanted Dom to squirm a little. Justin’s a great fighter. You
have
to know he’s taken other wolves down in challenges.”

Katelyn felt a shiver of excitement mixed in with her horror, her disgust. That had never dawned on her, but of course it had to be true. He was a very high-ranking werewolf in the pack. She’d conveniently forgotten that being the nephew of the alpha didn’t guarantee him a free ride.