Deceived By the Others (13 page)

Between one blink and the next, Seth was shifting. He cried out a challenge before his human vocal cords were too changed by the shift to allow for speech, his last words trailing off into a long, drawn-out howl. “You’re dead! You’re all dead, unless you yield to me!”

I watched, fascinated, as Seth’s chest deepened and his arms grew thick with muscle. The crack of bone and sinew adjusting and reforming was sickening, but fortunately didn’t last very long since he’d forced a quick change. The fur that sprang out of his skin was a shade of deep brown a little darker than his hair, covering sleek muscles and a powerful frame that would rival Chaz for size if he had shifted, too. No wonder Seth thought he was badass. Still, size didn’t necessarily mean one had smarts or skill or experience, things Chaz had in abundance.

Seth wasn’t going full wolf either; he was assuming the half-and-half shape that he would be stuck in again tonight—just like the rest of the Weres—once the moon was full. If he survived, that is.

Doing this now was stupid. Despite the benefit of immense size and strength, he’d be weak for a few minutes from the pain of forcing a quick shift, more still as it wasn’t yet nightfall. Chaz took advantage, stepping forward to clamp iron fingers around the wolfman’s windpipe at the peak of his challenging howl, cutting off the sound with a high-pitched
“yark!”
With inhuman strength, Chaz slowly pulled the snarling, slavering jaws down until the wolf was eye-level, ignoring the claws that reached up and dug deep into his forearms.

“You made a big mistake, buddy. I’ve been waiting for this for a long time.”

Dillon urged me to back up, and I noted Seth’s boys were moving, too, giving the two men room to fight. Seth was scrabbling at Chaz’s arms, fighting for air as his pack leader’s grip tightened on his throat.

“See, this is why you’d never make pack leader. You’re big and tough, sure. But you don’t think things through.”

Chaz shoved Seth back in a move that looked casual, but had enough force behind it to partially uproot the tree he slammed the shifted Were into. The snap of roots was audible under the mud, and the tree listed dangerously to one side, swaying unsteadily as Seth used it to lever himself back up to his feet. Chaz didn’t give him the opportunity to get his balance, one fist lashing out to punch Seth’s jaw hard enough for blood and a few sharp teeth to go flying into the underbrush and mulch.

“Instead of leaning on low tricks and pranks, you could’ve fought your way up the ranks and gained some respect in the process.”

He kicked Seth in the ribs, hard, as he tried to crawl away, whimpering in pain. Even I winced a little in sympathy at the thud of Chaz’s hiking boot connecting with furred flesh, sure to leave a bruise deep enough that it would probably show even when Seth shifted back into his human form. Seth’s buddies were all looking green around the gills, their gazes creeping up to the canopy above instead of watching their friend get the shit beaten out of him.

“Right now, you’re just pathetic. You will continue to be pathetic until you realize that the pack structure is in place for a reason.” It was painful to watch as Chaz tangled his fingers in the fur at the scruff of Seth’s neck, yanking him up to grind the harsh words home, speaking right into one of those triangular, tufted ears. “You don’t fuck with the structure unless you’re ready to take a higher place in it. You. Are. Not. Ready. You won’t be ready for a long time, not unless you learn some fucking respect. If you start showing me and your superiors that respect, maybe we’ll teach you how to climb in the hierarchy without getting your ass handed to you.”

With that, Chaz let Seth drop to sprawl gracelessly on the ground, tail tucked between his legs as he curled up on his side. Blood trickled down the side of the Were’s jaw as he voiced low, pained whimpers. Throughout the entire fight, if you could call it that, Chaz hadn’t broken a sweat and had barely ruffled his hair. The only signs he’d even taken part in it were the gouges in his forearms and the slightest spattering of mud around the hem of his jeans.

He brushed his hands off, staring down at the fallen Were for a long moment, and I soon realized he was waiting for something. Seth eventually managed to work himself up to a position where he could reach out and lick at one of Chaz’s hands, keeping crouched low to the ground with his head down, looking like a dog that had just gotten a kick from its master. Chaz reached out and absently ran his hand over the silken fur between Seth’s ears, at once a comforting and a warning gesture.

“Let’s not do this again for a while, hmm?”

Without waiting for any sign of agreement, he turned away from Seth and walked over to me. Dillon and Sean moved aside so he could wrap an arm around my shoulders. Though I was grateful for the warmth and protection he afforded, the casual violence he’d just visited on Seth made it difficult to relax against him.

“Sorry you had to see that, love. They didn’t hurt you, did they?”

“No, I’m okay,” I said, glancing back over my shoulder to see Curtis and Gabe moving over to Seth’s side, helping him to stand. At Chaz’s light nudge, I turned my attention back on him, and we started on the path back to the cabins. “What about you? And is Ethan okay? Seth said something about bane… .”

“Don’t worry about Ethan.”

The way he said it made me quiet for a moment, biting my lower lip. The silence stretched uncomfortably, punctuated by the crackling of twigs underfoot.

“That was really something,” I ventured, hesitant. He didn’t look terribly upset, but his eyes were still glowing with agitation. “I didn’t know you could beat up a shifted Were like that.”

“If he’d stayed human, or if I’d shifted too, it might have gotten ugly. He was vulnerable because of forcing the shift so fast, and I took advantage of it.” Chaz shrugged, grimacing as he held up his free arm to look over the deep scratches. “I’m just glad he didn’t hurt you. I might have had to do some real damage if he had.”

Nick laughed, and some of the tension eased from Chaz’s too-tight muscles. “You are such a show-off.”

“Part of what makes him a good pack leader,” Sean said, clapping Chaz lightly on the shoulder as he came up beside us. “You had me worried for a second. I wasn’t sure what you were waiting for when Seth started to change.”

“Timing is everything,” Chaz said, rubbing his hand up and down my arm as I shivered and leaned into his warmth. It was dark between the trees, and I didn’t like the idea of having a bunch of unfriendly werewolves behind us, possibly planning revenge. “I hope he learned enough of a lesson not to push his luck and try me again for a while.”

“He didn’t,” Sean said flatly, ducking a low-hanging branch. “He’ll lick his wounds for a bit, and then figure out some other way to try to get you out of the way. He won’t accept that he lost so badly with grace.”

Simon snorted. Dillon shook his head and rolled his eyes. Chaz remained thoughtful.

“I don’t know. He barely scratched Chaz, and he’s not stupid. He’s got to know that means he’s lost some face, and that no one will follow him now,” I said, glancing at Sean.

“That’s true. Curtis, Gabe, and Richard have to know they aren’t going to be welcome back into the pack without making some amends for snubbing Chaz.” Nick rubbed his jaw thoughtfully, looking back over his shoulder. “Not that they were very welcome to begin with, but they’ll either take the fall back to the lowest of the low with Seth, or they’ll try to save face by ignoring him now.”

“There’s nothing saving them from the fall they’re about to take,” Chaz said, fingers tightening briefly on my shoulder as I stiffened at the mix of anger and fierce satisfaction in his voice. “I was giving this some thought earlier. Alec Royce offered to pay a pretty hefty sum to have a couple of the pack work for him as bodyguards and to possibly act as the occasional donor. It’ll help out the rest of the pack overall, improve relations with the leech, and teach them a lesson in one fell swoop.”

My jaw dropped in shock. It took a second for me to realize I wasn’t the only one shocked speechless. Relations between vamps and Weres just didn’t account for something like this. It just wasn’t done. Chaz would be making inroads to a place that didn’t bode well for anybody; it would either make his pack respected and feared as much as the Moonwalkers, or backfire and result in the Sunstrikers being social pariahs to the other packs.

“That’s pretty harsh,” Dillon muttered, the first to find his voice.

“Yes, but it will be worth it. They’ll be out of my hair, and learn a lesson in the process of doing the whole pack some good.”

“I didn’t take you for a player in politics,” I said, hiding the tremor in my voice with bravado. The fact that he was talking to Royce without my knowledge worried me a great deal, even more so now that he was planning on farming out some of his wayward pack members to the vampires. I knew Chaz could be cold, but I hadn’t thought he could be
this
ruthless. It bothered me more than I would’ve thought, especially considering what those boys had done. Yes, I wanted them to pay for it, but not necessarily like that. The rest of the pack would be scared shitless that the same might happen to them, I was sure. Not to mention that Royce often had other reasons behind why he did things, reasons you wouldn’t find out about until it was too late and you were in too deep to pull yourself out again.

“Don’t worry,” Chaz said, eyes bright as he looked down to me. “Think of it this way. They’ll never bother you again, and anybody else who might have thought to try something will have to think twice. If they even consider doing anything, they know it’ll mean going back to the vamps. That should be enough to stop anyone in the pack from messing with either of us.”

“Yeah,” I said, not quite meeting his eyes. Yes, it would be an effective deterrent. But at what cost?

Chapter 12

When we got back, Chaz made me swear up and down that I wouldn’t go anywhere without an escort—not even back and forth from our cabin to the lodge. Nobody thought Seth would try anything again so soon, particularly as he didn’t know yet exactly how much trouble he was in, but Chaz wasn’t willing to take any chances.

Considering what I’d just gone through, I didn’t argue too much. While I wasn’t sure a babysitter was necessary just to head up to the lodge, I did have to admit I was worried that Gabe or Richard might seek revenge on me. Despite my showing off back there, like Chaz, I’d used guile and the element of surprise to do what little damage I had done. If they had been shifted, my strength wouldn’t have been enough to do much more than ruffle their hair. Not to mention the fact that I could’ve been at risk of being turned furry, too. While I didn’t mind it happening to someone else, the idea of howling at the moon a few days out of the month myself was not a pleasant prospect.

The other guys hung around our cabin, ostensibly to stick with Chaz until moonrise. I was pretty sure they were really there to deter anyone else who might have been thinking about having a go at him. Since Seth had obviously been defeated, I didn’t think any other Were would go after him now, but their caution and show of loyalty pleased me.

While they sat around the table and on the bed, making the tiny space incredibly cramped, I found fresh clothes to change into. I didn’t pay much attention while they talked, though it was amusing that they were still hyped up and excited from the scuffle. They were so busy talking over each other, I don’t think they noticed when I slipped into the bathroom to change.

When I stepped out of the bathroom to find that Kimberly and Paula had joined the impromptu party, I had to make an effort to clamp down on my irritation. Kimberly I didn’t mind so much; she smiled and gave me a wave of greeting. Paula was another matter. The look on her face was one of thinly disguised dislike. God, you’d think I’d gone and kicked her favorite puppy or something.

Both of them were sitting on the bed and watching me as I headed to the kitchenette to prep hot water and towels to clean up Chaz’s wounds. Since they’d been caused by the claws of another Were, they would heal slowly. For most Weres, that would mean days instead of weeks to heal up the damage. For Chaz, that meant hours instead of minutes, thanks to his status as an alpha. He wouldn’t get an infection from the wounds, but I didn’t like looking at the gouges or the idea of him forgetting and getting blood on more of his clothes or the bed or something.

Nick vacated a chair for me, and I scooted over to pull Chaz’s arm into my lap. The girls didn’t say anything while the guys talked and joked about Seth’s getting his ass handed to him, and how much he was going to enjoy being the vampire’s little pet plaything.

Sean was snickering at something Dillon had muttered that I really wasn’t interested in hearing. “You beat him up pretty bad. He’s going to have a hell of a time with the hunt missing those teeth.”

“He deserved it,” Simon said. “He’s lucky he didn’t get branded rogue and kicked out of the pack for all the trouble he’s caused.”

“It’s a life lesson they’ve all got to learn sometime. I was almost as much of a disrespectful cur as he’s being now,” Chaz said, wincing as I scrubbed a bit harder than was strictly necessary at the dried blood on his arm. “You can’t piss on the pack leader’s parade and expect to get away with it. He’s lucky he’s Ricky and Armina’s kid, or I might have done some permanent damage to teach him a lesson. I’m still ticked about my clothes. The bane in Ethan’s tea, too; that was low, even for Seth.”