Every Dawn Forever (12 page)

Sydney thought it was strange that Alyssa envied her.  Her life was nothing to be envied.

Cairo and Alyssa were staying at the fire pit while everyone else hunted.  The other hyena clan was there.  Sydney hadn’t seen much of them except occasionally at work and the Sunday dinners.  Dante pulled a lighter from his pocket and held the flame to several pieces of kindling, pushing the burning ends into the center of the logs in the pit.  The logs blazed to life quickly as Dante stood and wished everyone a safe hunt.  Cairo and Alyssa walked over to a blanket that had been laid near the fire and sat down, his big, bulky body holding her petite but very pregnant one tenderly.  Her mates kissed her before starting to remove their clothing to shift, and Sydney turned away from the sight.  Not only to give them privacy, but because it was almost too hard to watch.  That much love and concern.  Alyssa was a very lucky woman.

Orion said, “Sweetheart, you know where the territory is, so just stay within the borders.  We’d like to stick by you if that’s alright, but we won’t get in your way.”

She was glad they were going to hunt with her.  “Thanks,” she said, pulling her top off and stepping out of her flip-flops and shorts.  Her wolf was so anxious to be free that she had barely stepped free from her clothes before the need to shift overwhelmed her and she let herself go.  Too fast for human eyes to track, her human body began to change, but a light pain in her stomach caused her to stop and hunch over.  She almost felt as if she shouldn’t shift.  As if there was something that was stopping her from changing.  As quickly as the pain had come, it disappeared and she continued to change and reform into her wolf body.  Shaking herself out, she flexed her claws into the earth and lifted her muzzle, drinking in the warm night air.

The other hyenas disappeared, but three stood nearby, watching her intently.  She began to move away from the fire and into the surrounding woods.  Old fears rose up and she stopped, lowering her head and waiting for the all-too-familiar weight of a choke chain to be slipped around her neck.  Almost immediately, she willed her eyes open and swept her gaze around her.  There were no other wolves here.  She wasn’t in the place she’d been forced to live, and would never be back there again.

Glancing to the three hyenas who stood patiently nearby, she shoved the old memories away and concentrated on finding something to hunt.  This was the first time she had freedom to go where she wanted to in her shift in six long years and she wasn’t going to waste it standing around mooning over her past.  She might not be lucky enough to be their shared mate, but she was damn well lucky enough to be here on this night and she wasn’t going to let the chance to hunt with them slip by.

With a bark of encouragement, she darted off into the woods in search of something fast and furry.  The guys stayed with her through her hunt.  They stayed a few yards away, as if they didn’t want to encroach on her hunt, but she wouldn’t have minded if they’d stood shoulder to shoulder with her.

After rousing a nest of rabbits and chasing one particularly agile one, she finally caught the furry brown creature and devoured it.  It wasn’t hard to miss the approval in their eyes as they watched her hunt, and her wolf was damn near preening like a prom queen.  They resumed their leisurely search through the moonlit woods.  After a short while, her sensitive ears picked up the sound of deer and she took off, the woods flashing by her as she followed the sounds and scents of her prey.  She was aware that the guys were with her, close enough to keep an eye on her but far enough away to give her room to move.  Her paws pounded on the ground, closing the distance to the deer until she caught sight of them.  The small group of deer raised their heads abruptly and the scent of fear washed over them before they darted away, crashing through the brush in an attempt to get away.

She chased the lead buck, passing by some slower-moving females in an attempt to take down the biggest one.  As she breathed deep in passing, a scent tickled her nose that was at the same time both familiar and very strange.  She slowed her pace, sorting the scent out in her mind.  It smelled so familiar.  It wasn’t a natural scent, that much she knew, but she wasn’t sure why.

Glancing over her shoulder, she saw one of the guys leap towards a deer and in a heartbeat she knew what she had smelled.  The deer’s eyes were glazed over and froth seeped from the corners of its mouth.  Poison.  The deer was poisoned.  And the reason she knew the smell was because her former mate had used the same poison on a family of skunks that had tried to make a home under their trailer.

Fear washed over her like a tidal wave and she wheeled around and raced towards the deer that was being taken down by the hyena on its back.  She tackled the hyena in a flying leap, shoving it away from the deer thrashing on its side but unable to get up.  The hyena growled as it hit the ground, rolling under her before leaping to its feet.  She backed towards the deer, which was making a low, moaning sound in its throat and still struggling to get up, and spread her front legs apart, lowering her head and growling a warning.

The guys stood several feet away from her.  She could tell by the tilt of their heads that they were confused.  One of them, she didn’t know which one, took a step towards her and she growled again, gnashing her teeth.  They had to stay away from the deer.  Now that she was close to it, the scent of the poison was strong enough that she was certain that it was the same that her former mate had used. Coupled with the scent of him that she’d thought she smelled earlier in the day, she knew now that she hadn’t imagined things.  He’d found her somehow and had poisoned at least one deer in an attempt to hurt or kill her.

Forcing herself out of her shift, several hours earlier than she was ready for, she fell to the ground with a groan, her bones and muscles screaming in protest.  Dizziness assaulted her and the pain returned to her stomach.  As nausea filled her, she felt them approach her gingerly and she lifted her head and growled out, “The deer’s poisoned!”

As if on cue, the sound of several large bodies hitting the ground echoed around them, and she knew without seeing them that more deer had succumbed to the poison as the first one had.  Her stomach rolled and she lurched away, throwing up, pressing a hand against a tree for leverage and holding back her hair with her other hand.  Fear coursed through her as her stomach rid itself of the contents of her previous meals.  Fear that her former mate had indeed found her.  And fear that he wouldn’t leave without her.  Dead or alive.

Chapter 10

Orion hadn’t ever seen a she-wolf act as crazy as Sydney did, knocking Crux off the deer and then snarling over it like it was her baby.  But when she forced herself into her human form when they’d only been out less than two hours, he knew that something serious was going on.

Poison?  How did she know?

The need to protect her overrode all else, and he gathered his strength and forced himself into his human form.  He stumbled slightly, his body not ready to return to this form so fast, but the sight of her leaning heavily against the tree and throwing up made it worth the headache and muscle soreness that immediately plagued him.

Kneeling next to her, he tilted her chin up until she looked at him.  Her eyes were bright with tears, her lower lip trembling.

“How do you know the deer is poisoned, sweetheart?”

“M-my former mate used the same poison,” she hiccupped and then stood quickly.  Her legs weren’t able to keep her upright and she listed to the side.  He swung her up into his arms before she hit the ground.  She shivered and wrapped her arms around him immediately.  “We have to get somewhere safe.  He knows where I am!”

The logical part of his mind doubted that the asshole who had tortured her for six years could have found them in this middle-of-nothing town in Kentucky.  But the beast in him that roared to protect his mate knew that her fear was very real.

Calling to his brothers, he sent Crux to find the others and had Sterling follow him back to the house with Sydney.  He jogged back towards the house, saw Cairo and Alyssa and told them to follow him, and headed straight inside after disarming the security system.

“No one’s been inside the house, Sydney,” he reassured her, resetting the alarm after Sterling, Cairo and Alyssa were inside, and carrying Sydney straight down to the den.  In the large bathroom, he grabbed a towel off the rack and wrapped it around her.

She sat on the toilet lid, her face pale and her hands trembling.  He gave her a glass of water, holding it for her because she seemed so weak and distracted.  Smoothing back her hair, he said, “Tell me everything, sweetheart.”

She explained that she thought she’d imagined smelling her former mate’s cologne earlier in the day.  But when she caught scent of the poison from the deer, she knew that he had found her.

“He put the poison in food he left out for the skunks, and I think he did the same thing here — set food out for the deer, knowing that he was in your territory and that we would most likely come upon them.”

He nodded.  “If you hadn’t stopped Crux, we all would have torn into that deer.  Thank you.”

Her head snapped up and her mouth fell open.  “Are you serious?  ‘Thank you’?  For what?  Bringing hell to your doorstep?”

She moved from the toilet to the double sink, flipping one faucet on and cupping her hand under the stream.  As she rinsed her mouth out, her other hand clutched the towel around her.

“Sweetheart,” he said, hating that she felt so responsible for things.

She spit out a mouthful of mouthwash and slammed the water off.  Meeting his eyes in the mirror, she stared at him for several moments and then said quietly, “It wasn’t supposed to be like this.”

She looked so sad.  “What?”

“I was supposed to get picked up by someone in my cousin’s pack and whisked away to the middle of ass-nowhere where Byron would never have even thought to look for me.”  She turned and leaned against the counter, her arms across her chest like she was trying to shield herself.  “He found me somehow, and he’s not going to stop until he has me back in that hell or dead by his hands.”

Rage turned Orion’s vision red.  He planted his hands on either side of her, his fingertips gripping into the counter like he could gouge holes through the marble.  Leaning close, he stared into her blue eyes and all but growled out, “He’s not going to get you, Sydney.  We promised to keep you safe and we’ll damn well do it.  I don’t know how the fuck he found you, but he’s going to leave on his own or leave in a pine box.  You’re not going anywhere.”

Her mouth parted and her brows furrowed slightly.  Her eyes dropped to his mouth and she licked her lips before taking in a low breath as if she were about to speak.

“Guys?  We’ve got a problem,” Cairo’s voice broke through the tension between them as quickly as a hot knife through butter and Sydney slipped out from under his arms and walked out of the bathroom and down the short hallway.  Catching sight of his nakedness in the mirror, Orion snagged a towel and wrapped it around his waist before joining Sydney, Cairo, and Alyssa in the den.  Sterling sat near the bed in his hyena form.

When Orion told Cairo about the deer, Cairo said, “I accidentally grabbed Dante’s cell before we left the house, and I kept getting these phone calls from a private number so I just turned off the ringer and ignored them.  I decided to check the phone as we were coming here.  Turns out that Sydney’s cousin called Dante’s phone when she couldn’t reach you guys on your cell.”

Cairo played one of the messages.

“This is Jan, Sydney’s cousin.  I need to find Sydney and the others right away.  I just found out that my daughter answered the phone when I was out yesterday and a man asked for Sydney’s new address so he could send some important documents to her.  I think that her ex-mate is on the way to the house and I’m worried about her safety!  Please call me right away!”

“Shit,” Orion said.  She might have been able to stay safe forever, if that mistake hadn’t been made.  But it wasn’t the child’s fault.  It was Sydney’s former mate’s fault.

“What do you want to do?”  Cairo asked.

“I’ll call Jan and then we’re going to find out where the hell that fucker is and send him packing.  One way or the other.”

Sydney put her hand on his arm.  “He’s crazy, Orion.  You don’t know what you’re going against.”

He glanced at Cairo and Alyssa, who cleared their throats and then turned and walked out of the den and back upstairs.  Putting both hands on her cheeks, he looked down into her worried eyes and felt the love that had been simmering in his heart for the last few weeks come to a boil.

“Sydney, there is no creature on earth that can take you from us.  I promised that I would take care of you, that all of us would, and I don’t break my promises.”  Taking a gamble on things, he said, “You’re ours, sweetheart.  Ours to protect and care for and love.”

Tears filled her eyes and she gripped his wrists with both hands, the towel sliding to the floor with a soft sound.  “Yours?”

He nodded, feeling like this was the fucking worst timing in history.  “The moment we found you in the bus station, we knew you were ours.  But we wanted to give you time.  You asked me once why we were taking care of you, and this is why.  Because you’re our shared mate and we’ll be damned if some asshole like your former mate is going to take you away from us.”