"Leave her the fuck alone," I snapped with a growl. I might've met Shelbi all of about two seconds ago, but I'd be damned if I was going to stand here and let a psychopath treat her like shit. Already, her personality had changed and she was grovelling, licking her lips and rolling onto her belly.
I didn't blame her; it was part of wolf culture. Besides, clearly her leader was a nutcase. She'd probably be ripped to shreds if she didn't show proper etiquette. I hate this guy, I thought as I glanced over at him. But why the hell am I turned on by him? Much as I wanted to deny that fact, my nipples were hard, heat was flooding between my thighs ... ugh.
Counseling.
As soon as I woke up tomorrow, I was making an appointment to get some counseling, if only to sort out my own thoughts. Maybe I was addicted to assholes? Because I seemed to be surrounded by them lately.
"I'll deal with my pack members as I see fit," Bennett said with a shrug of his massive shoulders. He was wide in the chest, narrow in the hips, but with toned legs and calves that drew the eye straight down. Of course, the constant hardness of his dick drew the eyes right up again. Why did wolves have to be naked when they shifted? Clearly, the source of their magic, their biology, their change ... it all had a different source than my own.
Bennett put his foot on Shelbi's belly and I stiffened up. If he hurt her, I would shoot him. No doubt about it.
Instead, he rolled her over with his foot.
"Scat," he growled out, curling his lip and turning back toward the cave entrance, dismissing Shelbi like she was less than dirt.
"You can't tell her off like that," I snapped at him, feeling like that was all I'd been doing lately: yelling at people, defending myself, defusing situations. It was getting old—and fast.
"Can't I?" Bennett asked, turning some of that wild dominance and fury in my direction. "Shelbi's an omega for a reason. If you want to see her gutted and slaughtered by rabid wolves, then go ahead, give the order for her to follow." Bennett smiled at me, this wide, toothy smile, bright white in the darkness. "Your choice: Shelbi goes or Shelbi stays."
With a final smirk, Bennett stalked off toward the cave entrance, the firm muscles of his ass drawing my attention. Swear to Inari Okami, a beam of silver moonlight fell through the trees and lit up that crack.
"Goddamn it," I groaned as I glanced down at Shelbi. She was sitting there, looking up at me expectantly. She didn't say anything, but I didn't blame her. Whether she spoke to me aloud or in my head, with her alpha this close, he'd hear whatever it was she had to say. "Why don't you head home?" I suggested, sheathing both my Ruger and my mother's blade. "I get paid to do this after all." With a grin, I leaned down and gave my new friend a pat on the head. "At least you can rest easy knowing I'll be milking that asshole for a cool half-mil per hit."
I stood up and headed after Bennett, into the damp, musky cave. During the day, bats would roost in here, that much was obvious from the amount of guano—aka bat shit—littering the ground. And on the weekends, well, it was obvious that teenagers were roosting in here. A used condom lay on the ground near my feet, right next to a small glass vial with pink sparkles that glimmered under the glare of my flashlight.
P-dust bottle.
Fuck.
"You don't need to do anything but observe," I said, lifting my flashlight and somehow ending up with yet another crystal clear view of the alpha male's ass. "You hired the guild for a service—let us deliver, okay?"
"You can't handle this on your own," Bennett said, and I felt my lips curling in response. Who the hell does this piece of shit think he is? "I would've asked for an entire team if I wanted it done without getting blood on my hands." He looked back at me and I wasn't sure what to make of his gleefully violent expression. "As I've said to you before, I do love me a little blood."
Bennett turned away and continued on. He seemed so sure of where he was going, leading us deeper and deeper into the nightmarish cavern. It occurred to me that coming out here without Mik's knowledge was stupid. No, beyond stupid. Insane. If Bennett decided to kill me or rape me out here, it'd be a horrible, awful fight to the death. And I wasn't certain that it'd been him who was dead at the end of it.
It could very well be me.
Like spelunkers who used flight plans to let authorities know when they were going into a cave system, a plan that said when they would be back and where they were going so they could be rescued if any problems arose, the guild had a similar system. There was always at least one upper level manager—like Mik—and one employee in the same pay tier, usually Bex, who knew where I was on any given mission.
But according to RADOPA records, I wasn't here tonight. I wasn't supposed to be here.
Swearing under my breath, I caught up to the alpha wolf of the Vail Valley Pack and stalked along beside him.
"These are my wolves," he said, keeping his attention straight ahead, blood dripping down his leg that he didn't even seem to notice. He was a crazy motherfucker, that was for sure, but there was a fierceness in his voice that I respected. He was a leader; these were his people. If they had to be taken out, he was going to at least help me do it.
"Have you thought of containing them, waiting around for a cure?" I asked quietly. Seemed like an obvious question, but I had to ask it. Nix seemed to think a cure was possible. Yes, shifters went mad when they couldn’t change, but what if there was a way to reverse that?
"There is no cure," Bennett said with a certainty that chilled me to the core. "At least not after the first few weeks."
"What do you mean?" I asked him as he paused in a room that I knew right away was cavernous, just based on the way the sound of our footsteps changed. Lifting my flashlight, I couldn't even make out the ceiling.
"I mean, I've been waiting for a cure, watching my wolves degenerate, and now ..." Bennett reached out and clamped his hand around my wrist, dragging the flashlight over to one side of the room and shining a glow on ... something. There was a hunched creature leaning against the wall, its head between its knees, blood and ... other fluids pooling around the mutated shape of its body.
As I watched, it lifted its head, this grotesque mix of human and animal, wolf. It was a werewolf, stuck between forms, like something out of a horror movie. Werewolves were either human or wolf, not both at the same time, never a beast like they showed in films.
"What the fu—" I started, but then Bennett was shoving me aside, so violently that my shoulder cracked against a wall and pain radiated through me. In the beam of the flashlight, I saw another one of those creatures drop down from goddess only knows where, cracking the stone floor beneath its massive, clawed feet.
If I'd had my magic, I would've cast some foxfire and set the place burning, fought my battles in the glow of firelight. Instead, I had to wait for Bennett to do it, cast a silver ball of moonlight, the power of every werewolf. Well, every alpha werewolf, at least.
When it came to supes, guns weren't usually the best option. We were too fast, too strong, too specialized. Even with the silver bullets I'd brought along with me, I doubted I would be able to take this creature unless I got a shot to the head. And the monster standing in front of me wasn't likely to hold off its assault long enough for me to do that. I barely managed to get my katanas out before the damn thing came barreling down on me, using the massive hulk of its body to pin me into the wall, my weapons crossed in an X in front of me, the only thing between me and death.
Usually, I had the extra layer of my magic.
I felt fucking naked without it.
Lifting up my right leg, I kicked the creature in the stomach and sent it stumbling back. According to Bennett, there were eight wolves that needed taking down and I could only see two of them, one of them on the ground beneath Bennett and the other coming after me.