Once Upon a Shifter (83 page)

I palmed one of the daggers on my thigh and pulled it from its scabbard. "There's not going to be a next pack leader in Montgomery."

She grinned. "That's my girl."

Daryn smiled slyly when our eyes met, and I was just about to make a run for him when fifteen of my pack issued into the clearing of the field from the woods, their teeth bared and ready for a fight. I froze in place, simultaneously keeping my eyes on him and the wolves. From the growth of thick trees behind him, I could hear guttural cries and the roar of battle and knew that Phoenix's vampires had found the rest of my pack. I prayed none of them got hurt; his clan was just as important to me as my pack was.

"I just want you, Mena. Or should I call you Andromeda?" His gaze moved a few feet to my right. "It's nice to see you made it, detective. Glad to see you brought all your friends. I expected as much. Actually, that is what I intended for you to do. Once I am Alpha, the vampires will be mine, too."

Phoenix clenched his teeth together. "You have farfetched dreams, wolf cub. What makes you so sure any of this will become a reality?"

Daryn smirked. "I'm sure you've guessed how magically talented I am, but just in case you didn't catch all my hints, allow me to show you." He raised his hands, fingers splayed to the heavens, then brought them down with a force that rocked the Earth on its axis. Everyone, besides my pack, Ace and me were impelled into the ground, groaning and screaming in excruciating pain.

Daryn's brow furrowed in confusion. "I must have missed one. How careless of me."

Ace held onto my hand. "Oh, shit," he muttered. "This doesn't look good, Andra. Want me to shift?"

"No. It's clear he doesn't know I've bonded with you. You may need your voice before this is over. Remember that he is part of my pack, and that you are his Alpha, too. Stay here. If he kills me, make sure he suffers before you slaughter him."

"I'm waiting, sweet Andromeda," Daryn said.

"The bond is screaming at me not to let you do this, but the Alpha in me knows you have to do what you have to do to get the job done. With that being said, I'm going to agree with both options; I'm going to let you go, but he isn't going to touch you, because I'm going with you."

"Ace, if you want to be a hero, just make sure my pack make it out of this alive!"
I said through our connection.

"Oh, they will, but you will, too. Don't argue with me about this, Andra. I may be bonded to you, but I am still an Alpha. Nobody threatens what is mine. Let's go,"
he said, and then started toward Daryn. I only hesitated a moment, stunned, before he pulled me along with him.

"Make him beg for mercy, Mena," Phoenix said in a strained voice from the ground beside me.

"Go, Mena," Meridia said. "I've cloaked you both, but my power is weak; it won't last long.

Daryn was still smiling, but there was a tiny fraction of nervousness in his eyes as they shifted to look at Ace. Behind that carefully trained mask, he was afraid; I could feel it.

I kicked myself for not seeing this before. He'd been the only one of my pack who had tried to contact me to let me know the pack was turning against me.

"What's this?" Daryn said when Ace and I stopped ten feet from him. "I thought the vampire was your flavor of the month. Or was it Rhodes? I can sense this one is a shifter. That's an improvement on your taste, but…" he sniffed the air, "…he isn't one of us."

"You're right and wrong," Ace said. "I am a shifter, the King of Beasts, per se, but I am also one of you."

Disbelief showed on Daryn's face. "It's not possible to be two different shifters."

"Who are you?" I demanded.

Daryn laughed. "That's the best part! I am the grandson of our creator. The story is wrong, you see. After my grandfather cursed one of my mother's lovers to the night and the other to the moon, my mother chose the beast as her one true love and ran away with him."

My eyes popped wide as I remembered Katie telling me that story. "You're over two-thousand years old? Why aren't you an Alpha already?"

"I've been waiting for the perfect time. You see, just being an Alpha wasn't quite good enough for me. I needed a moonrising Alpha to help me take over all other Alphas. My plan was working until someone figured out you hadn't named your wolf. It was I who caused Marc to attack you, and it was I who helped you pull that trigger, taking his life and title. I overheard Marc talking with his sister about leaving you; he said you were getting suspicious and he would rather you think he was cheating on you than tell you what he really was."

"You're lying. Marc doesn't have a sister."

Daryn smiled. "Well, he did until you killed her."

I sucked in a breath. "Dana…"

"Yes… Dana. Of course, after I discovered you named your wolf, I had a small change of plans. Being a regular Alpha won't be so bad, not when I will have Phoenix and his clan helping me take over other packs."

"How do you plan to do that? Phoenix will never follow your orders."

"Magic, of course."

"Too bad you won't have a chance to fulfill your dreams," I said.

"You take his left side. I'm going right,"
Ace said through my mind, and then drew his dagger after I nodded.

Our hands released, but our connection did not. Ace leant me his strength as an experienced Alpha and fighter. I had never felt more powerful than I did in that moment as we began to circle Daryn. The wolves began to close in around the three of us, but I knew they wouldn't touch me, not if Daryn intended to be Alpha and they were under his command.

Daryn crouched, grabbing two daggers of his own from the scabbards hooked to his belt. He grinned menacingly. "He is of no consequence to me, Andromeda. You are the only one who can give me reign by your death."

I opened my mouth to order him to drop the weapons and surrender, but he pointed the blade at me and made a circle motion with his wrist. I was incapable of speaking; he'd hexed me.

Lunging forward, Daryn sliced the air between us. I jumped back. The blade slashed through the material of the shirt, but somehow missed my flesh. He hissed and jerked away, focusing his full attention on Ace when the silver dagger sank beneath his skin, into his shoulder.

Daryn thrust his arm forward and Ace fell to his knees, the weapon in his hand clattering to the ground as he became immobile. Daryn clenched his jaw as he touched the wound on his shoulder and his fingers came away stained crimson with his blood. "Silver can't kill me. My power will defuse it. But you are going to pay for the weak attempt to end my life."

I rushed toward him, my dagger poised for the strike, but he turned and threw a gust of power at my chest, knocking me twenty yards back and over the wolves surrounding us. They closed in around me.

"Hold her there!" Daryn shouted at them. "I'll deal with you in a few minutes, Mena, but since you're so hell-bent on saving this one, you can watch him die." He turned back to look down at Ace, who was still immobile and on his knees.

I opened my mouth to scream, but I still couldn't speak.

"Ace!"
I shouted through my mind.

"Andra, run!"
he shouted back.

"I'm not leaving you here!"

I decided that if I couldn't use my voice, I was better off in a form in which I could actually do some damage. These wolves weren't keeping me pinned. If I was going to die today, it wouldn't be because I let it happen. I wasn't about to let Daryn hurt Ace, not without a fight.

I called my wolf and felt her energy ripple under my skin.
"Andromeda, let's do this!"

Less than a handful of seconds later, I was standing tall and pissed off on four giant paws. It was the first time I had been in wolf form since I'd taken full control, and the feeling was exhilarating. I shook off what remained of the leather clothing and took a step forward, ready and able to kick some shifter ass.

As they were surrounding me, I only had to get through possibly three of them to clear a path to Daryn before he killed Ace. I was Alpha; I was stronger than them ten-fold, but fighting them would take time and there were at least sixty feet separating us. Ace closed his eyes as Daryn raised the hand holding the silver dagger, the very dagger that had been missing.

"Ace! Give him a command!"
I shouted through my thoughts, but I couldn't feel him in my mind anymore. Did the bond between us not work after we shifted? No!

I crouched, ready to pounce on the first of my attackers, but just before I leapt, I heard Daryn scream. Glancing up, I saw that two wolf shifters had him on the ground, mauling him. He slashed at one of them with the dagger but missed, and the wolf quickly bit his wrist, causing him to release the blade.

Was the pack turning on him?

Out of my peripheral, I saw four other wolves running toward me. I bared my teeth, growling out my warning, but instead of lunging for me, they attacked four of the wolves surrounding me.

I made eye contact with one and recognized Roel's irises staring back at me. Roel, Heath, Heather, Tracy, Brad and Alex had managed to shift, and they weren't writhing in pain because Daryn's spell had left the whole pack exempt as long as they were in wolf form.

A wolf to my right took that moment to attack me, but I turned on it and sank my teeth into its neck, not quite killing it, but leaving it incapable of putting up much of a fight.

I didn't waste any more time. I had an opening, and I took it. I ran as hard and fast as I could toward my enemy, but Daryn was in the middle of shifting. If he finished before I got to them, he would kill Ace if he got away from Brad and Heather.

Daryn sprung into a magnificent dark-gray wolf and turned his full attention on Ace, but as he leaped through the air, Heather collided with him. She howled in pain when Daryn's sharp claws dug into her back and they tumbled to the ground. I was concerned for her well-being, but she had given me the time I needed to get there.

I hit both wolves at full-force, knocking them apart, and then I turned on him, my teeth bared and ready for his challenge. We circled, glaring at each other. I had never been more eager to take another life. This was my pack, and he couldn't have it.

"Stop, Daryn!" Ace shouted. "Bow down before your Alpha!"

Daryn's front legs buckled and his head dropped low before me, but his baffled eyes were on Ace.

I risked a glance in Ace's direction, and saw that he was standing, and that Phoenix, Jaxon, six lions and three witches were there with him. My gaze moved to the wolves Daryn had under his spell, but a dozen naked men and women were looking around, dazed.

My only guess was that Daryn couldn't use his magic in wolf form.

"Kill him, Andromeda," Ace said. "If you don't, I will. Something this dangerous can't be allowed to live."

He was right, but now that I'd had a moment of clarity and had calmed down a bit, executing someone seemed impossible to me. I wasn't a killer. I shouldn't have this responsibility; I couldn't handle it.

"Do it, Lupacchiotto," Phoenix said.

But I couldn't. I'd had too much time to think about it. Surely the sisters could take his magic somehow, and we could lock him in a cage until we figured out a different punishment than death.

My eyes shot back to Daryn as he began to shift back to human form.

"Kill him, Andra!" Ace shouted. "He'll kill us all when he is able to use his magic again."

I was frozen in place. Even knowing what would happen, I couldn't make myself kill another person.

"Fuck!" Ace swore, and then dropped to his hands and knees. The breath left my lungs when a massive lion burst out of Ace's body, nearly twice as large as the six lions behind him.

Phoenix and Ace attacked Daryn just as he became fully human. There wasn't even time for Daryn to scream or cast a spell before Ace's jaws clamped down on his throat. Phoenix grabbed Daryn's legs and they jerked Daryn's body in opposite directions, tearing his head off.

My heart pounded against my ribs as I stared at Daryn's unseeing eyes. He was dead, and I had put everyone in danger because I couldn't do what was necessary to stop him. I didn't have enough courage in me to kill someone who threatened the people I loved.

I wanted to hide in shame, but nobody was looking at me like they blamed me. They were cheering. They were celebrating. Was I the only one unhappy about this?

I had to face them, regardless of the coward that I was.

Calling my wolf back, I transformed to my human body.

Phoenix was in front of me and wrapping me in his arms, shielding my nudity from the others. At this point, I didn't care who saw me this way. I had failed them, and I felt like crap because of it.

"It's okay, Andra,"
Ace said through my mind, and my eyes met his human ones over Phoenix's shoulder.
"We took care of it. You're all right."

"I'm not alright,"
I said back.
"I can't do this. I can't be who they need."
Tears stung my eyes.

Ace's eyes shifted to the back of Phoenix's head, and then he just looked down at the ground, his lips pressed into a hard line. I could tell he wanted to come to me, to touch me, to take my anxiety and fear away, but Phoenix was holding me, and he didn't want to upset me again.

"I need Ace," I whispered to Phoenix.

He pulled back a bit, enough to look down at my face. His eyes were saddened, but he finally nodded and took a step back, allowing Ace to pick me up and carry me toward the woods.

"The witches and vampires have left to go get blankets and vehicles," I heard Brad say. "An unscheduled naked marathon running through Montgomery might alert the police."

I was tired, but it made me smile.

Chapter 61

Mena

I spent the rest of the night and the whole next day in bed, wrapped in Ace's arms. Every time I tried to leave his side, the fact that I'd almost let Daryn win would slam into me, and have me running back to feel his touch.