Last Wolf Standing (31 page)

“Like hell we are. They’re your people, Dad. Not mine.”

“Mason, let it go,” his father rasped, his deep voice urgent and low, one powerful hand clutching at his arm. “The longer you harbor the anger, the longer your heart will remain locked up in that miserable knot you’ve created. Let it go…and accept that you’ve been blessed.”

“And what about Torrance?” he hissed, jerking free of his father’s grip. “What about her? This is some blessing, isn’t it, Dad? I promised her that I’d keep her safe from the monsters and look what’s happened. Thanks to me, she’s in there with that bastard!”

Cian moved beside them, his gray eyes burning like twin pale flames of fire in the lavender twilight. “Simmons and the boy are the only Lycans I can scent on the air. He’s in there alone, with the women and Elliot.”

“Not for long he isn’t.” Unable to wait any longer, Mason rushed forward, breaking through the line of the trees at the exact moment the sun dipped to the edge of the horizon, the sky a mesmerizing smear of pink and purple and gold. The rushing wind surged around his body, bitter and cool against his face, catching at his scent.

“Don’t bother to knock,” Simmons called out when he reached the dark mouth of the cave. “We’ve been waiting for you, Dillinger. Come in and join our little party.”

With his heart in his throat, he stalked forward, his wolf’s eyes adjusting to the darker, firelit interior of the dank cave, his father and the Runners at his back, fanning out at his sides. An unbelievable rush of relief nearly floored him at the sight of Torrance wrapped in his mother’s arms to their right. Her skin shone as pale and luminous as a ghost, head buried in his mother’s shoulder, but she was whole and dressed and, amazingly, untouched.

Thank God.

His mother appeared just as shaken as his mate, her dark eyes hollow with fear. Elliot lay slumped against the ground, unmoving, a few feet away from the women, and on the far side of the cave, Simmons sat upon a massive boulder, his elbows resting on his bent knees. The rogue’s arms and face and bare torso were covered in blood, his jeans streaked with more of the dark crimson, the tangled length of his long brown hair slicked back from his narrow face. Beneath his sharp brows, his eyes were sunken, lifeless hollows.

Keeping one eye on the Lycan, Mason moved toward the women, pulling Torrance into his arms, cradling her head to his chest, aware of his father embracing his mother beside them. He wanted to crush her in his arms and tell her that everything was going to be okay, but he couldn’t get the words out.

“Just look at them, Mason,” the rogue called out, a satisfied smile curling the sinister line of his blood-smeared mouth. More blood dripped down his chin, matting in the thick pelt of hair covering his chest. “The two things you care about most in this world, and they’re all mine.”

“Like hell they are,” he snarled, tightening his arms around Torrance until she groaned softly against his chest, her face buried against him, and he forced himself to relax his hold.

“Oh, I’ll fight you for them,” the Lycan laughed. “And then, while you lie dying, I’ll enjoy them both…while you watch.”

“You’ve overstepped the bounds of depravity, Simmons,” his father growled, his deep voice guttural with rage. He had said they were going to handle this “according to the laws of their people,” and Mason knew that meant a proper, ceremonial Challenge fight—or, in simpler terms, a fight to the death. Before Robert Dillinger could utter the words Mason knew were coming, he said, “Consider yourself Challenged, Simmons.”

“Oh, goodie,” the Lycan laughed with a smile, rubbing his bloodstained hands together. “This is going to be fun.”

Mason grunted, then pulled Torrance with him as he moved toward the wall of the cave, wanting her as far from the rogue as possible. He was aware of the others following behind them, while Brody stayed in place, keeping a careful eye on Simmons, who watched them with an amused expression. “You’re both…unharmed?” he asked hoarsely, barely able to force the words past the tightness in his throat, his gaze moving swiftly between the two women.

His mother nodded, while Torrance stared up at him, their terror so stark and raw it made him want to rush at Simmons and tear the bastard’s throat out with his fangs. The only thing that stopped him was the knowledge that his father would hold him back, demanding he handle the situation according to the rules. “What happened to Elliot?”

“Your woman happened to him, Mason,” his mother told them with a small, sad smile. “He was ready to Challenge that monster himself, so she brained him with a rock. She saved the boy’s life.”

“Not for long,” he muttered. “I’m killing him for this, as soon as he’s awake to fight me.”

“You can’t do that,” Torrance whispered brokenly, sagging against the rough wall at her back. “None of this is his fault, Mase. He only wanted to save Marly, but when we got here, Simmons was—” She swallowed convulsively, her face too pale, and he knew what she couldn’t say.

A deep, guttural slash of sound rumbled in his chest, full of anguish and pain. “He killed the girl?”

Torrance nodded, blinking slowly, her green eyes red and swollen with her grief. “I had…I had to stop Elliot. He was going to get himself killed, so I did the only thing I could think of.”

“You knocked him out?”

“Yeah,” she said shakily, wrapping her arms around her slender body, as if she were trying to hold herself together.

“You’re amazing,” he breathed out on a husky groan, so proud of her that it hurt.

Crouching down beside the teenager, Jeremy pushed the thick caramel locks back from Elliot’s temple, checking the injury. “Looks like the night for getting your brains bashed in. But who knows? Maybe she knocked some sense back into him,” he muttered. “I still can’t believe he was stupid enough to try this on his own.”

“He didn’t have a choice,” she whispered, trembling, staring at Jeremy with tear-drenched eyes. “It was Marly on the phone. She told him that Simmons had her and Olivia, and that he was going to kill them if Jeremy didn’t bring me to him. Then we found Simmons…and he…he…”

“Don’t think about it,” Mason grunted, hating that she’d witnessed something so terrifying and evil—something straight out of her nightmares—and he hadn’t been able to stop it.

Torrance rolled her lips inward, lifting one shoulder. “I couldn’t think of anything else to do, so I hit him. It wasn’t even that hard a blow, but I think I might have struck where he got hit before.”

Moving to Mason’s side, Cian cast a long, heavy look toward the rogue waiting across the cave, watching them with feral anticipation. “He’s going to be damn near impossible to take down, Dillinger. He’s still riding high on the rush.”

“What do you mean?” Torrance asked.

“For a Lycan,” the Runner explained, “eating human flesh is almost the ultimate high. It jacks you up like pure adrenaline.”

“Then he’ll be even harder to defeat,” she gasped, panting as she began to panic. “You said it was almost the ultimate high, Cian. Wh-what’s better?”

“Bond blood,” Jeremy muttered grimly, glaring at his partner.

“Bond blood?” she repeated, grabbing on to Mason’s arm with a biting grip. “If that’s all you need to make yourself stronger, then do it, Mason. My God, you have to do it!”

He shook his head, cupping her face in his hands, catching at one glistening tear with his thumb as it slipped from the corner of her eye. “I won’t do this to you, not after what you’ve been through tonight. I won’t use you, Torrance.”

“Damn it, don’t do this,” she cried, gripping his wrists, her lips trembling as her voice cracked. “You have to do it, Mason! I don’t want to lose you. Please.”

“I can’t,” he growled, the irony of the situation not lost on him. He’d been so sure that she would refuse his bite out of fear if the moment ever came where he found the courage to ask her, and now that he’d finally stopped being such a blind jackass and realized he was head over heels, crazy in love with her—now that she was standing before him, proud and courageous, willing to accept the most primal act of his beast—he couldn’t. After what she’d been through tonight, seeing a young girl consumed by Simmons, there was no way Mason was going to make her stand there and take his fangs in her throat. No way was he going to risk binding her to him, then leaving her to follow him into death if he couldn’t defeat the bastard.

He had everything he wanted standing before him, and he couldn’t take it.

Because he loved her.

“I know you don’t love me,” she whispered, her heartbreaking words husky with pain as she stared at his throat, “but don’t do this, Mason. Don’t let him kill you. Please. I’ll release you afterward, I swear it. We’ll find some way to have it reversed, canceled, anything. Just don’t…don’t let him kill you. I can’t watch that, Mason. I can’t live through that.”

“Torrance, baby, look at me.” She lifted tear-drenched eyes the color of the forest in the height of spring, and his heart rolled over, filling him with so much love, he couldn’t hold it all inside. “I love you,” he said on a harsh breath of air, grinning at the vision of her eyes going completely round, her mouth opening into a perfect O of surprise.

“Wh-what?” she gasped, tears spilling down her cheeks like tiny rivers, wetting his hands as they cradled her face.

“I love you,” he said fervently. “Love you so much that I don’t even know how to explain it. All I know is that you’re in my heart, my mind, the air that I breathe, every part of me. I love you.”

“Then you’ll do it? You’ll make the bond with me?”

He shook his head, leaning forward to press a tender kiss to the corner of her eye. “I won’t do it, sweetheart. Not like this. Not after what you’ve been through, not—”

“Who cares what I’ve been through?” she cried, gripping handfuls of his shirt in her hands. “I’m alive, Mason. But if you die—”

“If I died, you’d die, too,” he growled, pressing a hot, hungry kiss against her trembling mouth. “And there’s no way I’m letting that happen.”

Mason released his hold on the woman he loved, and turned toward Simmons. As he walked to the middle of the cave, the bloody remains of the girl became visible on the far side of the boulder where the Lycan remained sitting. The closer he moved toward the rogue, the thicker the scent of blood and sex grew, making him ill at the thought of what his mother and Torrance had witnessed. And yet, Torrance hadn’t faltered. If ever he were given proof that his little human was a warrior, it was now. She was all fire and strength and courage. A woman who would stand by his side as an equal, and help him meet any challenges that life threw at them.

Cian moved to his side, placing a cigarette between his lips, then dug deep in his pocket for a lighter. “Robert,” he said around the slim roll of tobacco clasped within his white teeth, “it should be your honor to make the circle.”

His father moved to stand before them, reaching down to dig his right hand into the moist earth, clutching a handful of soil. He stood, calling out the ancient ritual words of Challenge as he sprinkled the dirt upon the ground at four points—north, east, south and west. The points served as markers for the wide circle he then proceeded to draw in the ground with his hand in four connecting arcs. As he closed the circle, he completed the ritual with the words, “So the Challenge is raised. May justice be done when victory falls to the last wolf standing.”

Waiting at the circle’s edge, Mason pulled off his shirt and dropped it to the ground. He shook his arms out at his sides, bouncing lightly on the soles of his boot-covered feet as he watched Simmons move to the opposite side, across from him. “Shall we go whole or half forms?” the rogue drawled, a hard, ruthless energy all but burning from his body, pulsing around him like a fiery glow.

“Half,” he grunted, wondering how Torrance was going to react to his change—and half-terrified that she’d never want to come near him again if he survived.

“I thought you might say that,” Simmons laughed, looking past him to wink at the women.

His father placed a hand on his shoulder, giving an affectionate squeeze, his dark blue eyes full of pride and concern. “Any words of advice?” Mason asked roughly.

“Yeah. Torrance may be scared of our world, but what woman in her right mind wouldn’t be? She’s also strong and fiery and protective as hell of you. If you’re in love with her, she deserves your faith.”

“She’s my mate.”

“Which takes care of nature. But sometimes a union comes along that truly sets the metaphysical world on its ass. I was lucky enough to find it with your mother. It’s time you completed the bond. Don’t blow your chance, son. Life’s too short.”

He snorted, shaking his head at the old man’s audacity. “I promise you that if I make it out of this cave alive, sinking my teeth into her is going to be at the top of my list. But I’m not doing it now.”

Those dark eyes narrowed with a hard truth. “You may not win otherwise, Mason.”

“But if I do, I’ve got a helluva good thing to look forward to.”

Cian snuffled a quiet chuckle at his side and then he felt her heat at his back, followed by the soft touch of her palm against his spine. Spinning around, Mason pulled her against him, kissing his way into her mouth.

“I won’t risk you that way,” he growled against her lips, kissing her deeper…harder, before gently pushing her away. He sent a silent message to Jeremy, who came forward and wrapped his arm around her shoulders, securing her at his side.