Rising Reign, page 3
part #3 of The Wolves of Crescent Creek Series
He stared up at nothing as his blood pooled beneath him. A roar of appreciation escaped me, and I bounded toward Wren. Her gaze snapped up at my approach, and I wished I could mind-speak to her now, tell her how proud I was of her. But I wouldn’t have that ability until we all were mated to her.
Instead, I settled for headbutting her side and licking her chin. Wren’s fingers sank into my fur. “Brix,” she whispered.
Relief swept through me. She was okay. Alive. Breathing.
“Get her!” a man hollered, lifting a rifle in my direction.
Kingston leveled an answering weapon at him at the last possible moment and hit the man square between the eyes. He fell, but the two with him shifted and ran straight for us.
King tried to get off another shot but got pulled into a hand-to-hand battle with another man. I let out a low growl, bracing for the two wolves coming straight for Wren and me. Wren took up a fighting stance, her knife at the ready.
One of the wolves leapt into the air, aiming for Wren, but just as his jump reached its apex, an arrow hit him directly in the eye. I didn’t have a chance to admire Ender’s aim because I was too busy taking on wolf number two. The gold-and-brown wolf lunged, but I raked my claws across its flank as I dodged.
The wolf howled and snarled in response. He turned to face me head-on as my brothers battled the others. Saliva dripped from his fangs, and I couldn’t help but wonder if he was drugged up, too.
He lunged again, nipping my already injured shoulder, but I dove to the side and rolled. Up on my paws again, I struck out. The golden wolf howled in pain but kept right on coming. I had no choice.
As he lunged a third time, I caught him by the neck. One swift jerk and I felt his spine crack. The wolf fell limply to the ground. Such a waste. And all because the creature had become indoctrinated by Bastian Boudreaux.
It was as if the shifter had some hold over them, feeding the darkness that lived inside and growing it.
“We have to move now,” Kingston shouted as he ran over to us. “Locke’s boosting one of their vehicles.”
As if to punctuate the point, the sound of an engine sprang to life in the distance. King pulled Wren into his arms and kissed her head. “You’re okay.”
She nodded quickly. “Let’s move.”
Ender sailed in on some kind of rope pulley he’d strung between the trees and dropped to the ground just as Puck ran over, still in his wolf form. Ender instantly had his bow and arrow ready as we moved toward the sound of the incoming vehicle.
Then, a voice boomed from the main house. “Do not let the traitor live!”
Everything happened in slow motion.
A man stepped from the building, a rifle lifted. Ender turned, aiming his arrow. Both shot at the same time. Ender’s hit true, striking the man right between the eyes. But the man’s bullet also made contact.
Kingston moved, shoving Wren to the side, but he wasn’t quick enough. The bullet hit him right in the chest. His eyes widened, flashing to his wolf as pain speared him. His body hit the ground with thundering force, and then the world went quiet.
6
WREN
Everything came in sharp, jerky flashes. The sound of the bullet. Kingston shoving me to the side. Him falling to the ground. All the blood.
A massive SUV jerked to a stop just outside the clearing, and some part of me recognized Locke behind the wheel and a back door opening, Hera at the ready.
Ender’s arrows flew, raining down on anyone who stepped into view, but I only had eyes for King. Blood had soaked through his tee, spreading too fast and far. Puck shifted, lifting King into his arms and hurrying for the SUV as Ender provided cover. I slid into the rear seat with the rest of them, and Ender and Brix leapt into the back.
“Help him,” I croaked at Hera.
Her face paled as she took in Kingston’s form. His eyes were closed now, his breathing shallow.
“Please,” I begged her.
“Hands on his chest, over the wound. Press as hard as you can,” she instructed.
I moved instantly, kneeling on the floorboard and putting all my weight into the contact.
King’s eyes fluttered, and he let out a pained groan.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I’m so sorry.”
His eyes opened, heavy-lidded and trying to focus. “Wren…”
“I’m here. Just hold on. We’re going to fix you up. Just hold on.”
“Love…you…best honor…of my…life…loving you,” he rasped.
Tears streamed down my cheeks, mixing with King’s blood in a horrible sort of beauty as they fell. “Don’t leave me. Please, don’t leave me.”
His lashes fluttered again, and this time, his eyes fell closed.
“How close to the safe house?” Hera barked.
“Five minutes out,” Locke called.
“Make it three,” she ordered. “Did you stock it with my supplies?”
“Of course we did,” Puck growled as he pulled on a shirt to go with the sweats he’d obviously pulled from somewhere in the vehicle. Since the SUV belonged to shifters, it wasn’t all that surprising to find extra clothes, but I saw his nose wrinkle at the enemy’s scent.
Hera pulled a pouch from her pocket and sprinkled the contents over King. “This won’t help for long, but it will hold him for now.”
She began chanting, and light illuminated the SUV, sparks that circled and danced, hovering over King. My gaze moved between the light, Hera, and Kingston. Her face grew paler by the second, and I somehow knew she didn’t have much left in her reserves.
I closed my eyes, lifting prayers to the gods of nature and the universe, begging them not to take King from me when we’d only just begun.
Tires screeched, and we jerked to a stop. The sparks blinked out, and then we were moving again. Puck and Ender lifted King out of the vehicle, carrying him toward a cabin I didn’t recognize.
“On the table,” Hera yelled, running for the kitchen island.
I stayed right at King’s side, gripping his hand as they set him on the hard surface. He groaned, but his eyes never opened. I could feel him slipping away. The tethers not yet binding us were fading.
Hera moved to the table, barking out orders. She cut the shirt from King’s body, and fresh blood pooled. She cursed, and her gaze snapped to me. “You’re his only hope. You have to keep him here.”
“How? Tell me what to do. I’ll do it.”
“You need to bite him. Bond yourself to him. It may be enough to save him.”
The guys instantly started shouting.
“It could kill her!” Puck yelled.
“King would never want to put her at risk like that,” Locke argued.
Everything about it was wrong. A one-sided bond would be a disaster in the long run, but I also knew exactly why Hera had suggested it. We could draw strength from our bondmates, and right now, that was what King needed the most.
He’d been willing to give his life for me, and I would do the same for him.
My canines lengthened, pressing through my gums. Before anyone could stop me, I bit Kingston’s shoulder, sending all my love, strength, and hope with the bite. Sensations swept through me—pleasure and pain, hope and fear. Wave after wave until I felt a mental click.
I gently pulled my teeth from King’s flesh and wiped away the tiny specks of blood. Below the bite, a mark began to appear. A heart half-covered in what looked like hand wraps from the gym. A choked cry left my lips.
“Take his hand,” Hera ordered. “Keep him here.”
I gripped King’s hand as hard as I could. My vision blurred as she went to work with a mix of medical and magical tactics. King’s energy started to fade, and I pushed more of mine into him.
I swayed on my feet, and Locke instantly moved in to steady me. “It’s too much,” he said.
“No,” I rasped. “He’s not leaving. I won’t let him.”
“Almost there,” Hera called.
Her hand hovered over King’s chest, and the bullet sprang free. The moment it did, her hand clamped over the wound, and she began to chant. But it was too much. Everything in me started to waver. The room tipped sideways, and then I couldn’t see anything at all.
7
WREN
I woke to a burning heat as if I were lying on sand baked by the sun, the kind that scalded your feet if you stayed put too long. I let out a grumbling groan, and the surface I was lying on shifted. Was some kind of weird earthquake happening?
My eyelids fluttered, and bright light swept through in flashes. I took in everything I could before they closed again. Each sweep gave me more information. A rustic cabin, but one that was that way by choice. I knew because all the furniture looked fancy.
A cloud-like bed with a thick comforter. A bare, muscular chest. An angry scar.
The last image had me jerking upright.
“Easy,” Kingston said, the tone of his voice unreadable.
“Oh, gods.” I shoved my hair out of my face, struggling to process what I saw. King was propped up against the pillows and had color back in his face. It was no longer a sickly shade of pale. He looked…good. The scruff on his face was thicker, and he somehow looked more muscular, but his eyes… Shadows swirled in the pale blue, gray swirls streaking across his irises.
“Are you…you’re okay?” I croaked.
“I’m fine.” A muscle pulsed in Kingston’s jaw. “How do you feel? Are you in pain?”
I did a mental sweep. I felt rough, sore muscles and an ache that lived in my bones. Given what I’d been through in the past few days, it made sense. And then I remembered the bite. The bond.
My gaze moved to King’s shoulder and the mark there. A heart wrapped in something that signified both our fighting natures, in practice and in our souls. My fingers itched to reach out and touch it, to stroke every line.
“Why?” Kingston rasped. “Why did you do it?”
My eyes flew to his face, and I saw it then—the anger pulsing behind the mask. “What do you mean?”
“You bonded us,” he growled. “You could’ve been killed.”
I felt my eyes flash to my wolf. My inner beast wanted to rake her claws across King. “You were dying.”
“I would’ve survived,” Kingston ground out.
I threw off the covers and pushed out of bed. “Is being mated to me truly that horrible?”
King shoved up and raked a hand through his hair. “I never wanted you to mate me because you were forced to.”
Anger burned brighter, stoked by frustration and grief. “Did you even consider that maybe I did it because I love you?”
I stomped by him and into the bathroom, slamming the door behind me. Tears burned my eyes, but I refused to let them fall. Kingston already had my soul for all eternity. He didn’t deserve my tears, too.
Crossing to the sink, I took in my reflection. The bathroom’s dark tones were mirrored in my face: deep purple swaths of color beneath my eyes, an almost gray hue to my skin. What I’d done for King had cost me.
I shoved away from the sink and moved to the shower, turning it on. The water hit the elaborate black marble. It fit the gold fixtures and the hunter-green walls perfectly, but I couldn’t find it in me to enjoy it.
Instead, I peeled off the T-shirt someone had put me in and tossed my underwear on top of it. Stepping into the shower, I groaned as the spray hit me. The warmth was a balm.
I leaned my head against the wall and let the water rain down on me. Then, the tears fell. Silent at first, and then in big, racking sobs. I couldn’t hold them in. It was too much.
The threats Marcelle had leveled at me. My father’s cruelty. Almost losing King. His rejection now.
I was breaking and could do nothing to stop it.
The shower door opened, and I whirled around. King stood there, stripped down to nothing, pure agony in the lines of his face. “Wren,” he rasped.
“Don’t,” I lashed out. “You don’t get to sweep in and comfort me now. Not when you don’t want this.”
He moved in, ignoring my words, and pulled me into his arms. “I want this more than my next breath. There’s nothing in this world I want more than a life with you. But it killed something in me to think you initiated the bond out of some sense of duty.”
I started crying harder, but Kingston held me through every sob. He didn’t let go as my body shook against his. He held on until my tears slowed and my breathing settled.
His fingers slid through the wet tangle of my hair, and he tipped my head back. “I love you, Wren. I love you with everything I have and everything I am. I love you. I’m yours. In every way that matters.”
I looked up into those pale-blue eyes. There were still shadows there, but there was also hope. “Make me yours,” I whispered, my voice raw.
“Wren, you’ve been through so much.”
“Please. It’s what I need. You.”
Kingston leaned in, his mouth taking mine in a slow kiss. “First, I take care of my little warrior.”
My breath hitched as he moved me back into the spray. King gently tipped my head back to wet my hair again. He reached for the shampoo on the shower shelf and squeezed some into his hands. The scent of jasmine filled the shower, and I moaned as Kingston began massaging my scalp.
He took his time, soaping every strand and rinsing every speck away. He followed the pattern again with the conditioner, his fingers pressing against my skull with the most delicious pressure as more of that jasmine scent swirled around us.
King’s nose slid down the column of my throat. “Being away from you was like losing a piece of my soul. I tried to pull up every memory, playing them over and over again so I wouldn’t lose the feel of you, the scent, the taste.”
His tongue flicked out as if to punctuate his point, and heat built low in my belly. Kingston reached for the bodywash, soaping his hands and running them down my arms. As he rinsed it away, he ran his lips over an especially bad scar. “I’d do anything to erase this. Not the mark. That proves your strength. But the pain. I’d do anything to erase the pain.”
“King,” I croaked.
He sank to his knees, soaping one leg and then the other. “I love you, Wren. Everything about you is a miracle.”
Kingston guided the water over one leg and then the other, but he didn’t rise. He stayed on his knees, gazing up at me with such reverence. His hand slid up one thigh, higher and higher, until he parted me.
A gasp slipped free, and his fingers teased and toyed. I gripped King’s shoulders, trying to hold on. Because having his touch now…it was so much more.
The half-completed bond sang through my nerve endings, crying out to be fulfilled. My flesh ached for King’s teeth, for his canines to pierce my skin in a bite that meant forever. I craved it like nothing I’d ever experienced.
Kingston slid two fingers inside me on a slow glide. “So fucking perfect. Just feeling you on my fingers is heaven.”
My walls tightened around him at the words, and King groaned. Then, he leaned in closer and inhaled deeply. “Killing me, Little Warrior. But what a way to go.”
His tongue flicked out, circling my clit. A wave of pleasure shot through me, but fast on its heels came a craving for more. For everything.
Kingston’s fingers swirled inside before sliding out and thrusting in again. He worked me with his fingers and tongue, a shudder racing through me. I had to brace one hand on the wall to stay upright.
“Please,” I begged.
King knew what I was asking for, the ultimate piece of him. Of us. His lips left that bundle of nerves and moved to my thigh as his fingers kept moving inside me. His mouth hovered over my flesh, and then he sank his teeth into me.
My orgasm was instantaneous and so intense my knees buckled. But Kingston kept me upright. He sucked on my bond mark as his fingers thrust in and out of me. Wave after wave crashed over me until I had nothing left to give.
As I collapsed, King caught me and cradled me in his arms. “I’ve got you. And I always will.”
8
PUCK
“Do you think I should go in there? I feel like I should go in there,” I said as I pushed back from the long table that had served as King’s operating room and now had a brunch spread to rival all brunch spreads atop it.
Brix reached out and clamped a hand on my shoulder, keeping me from rising. My gaze flicked to him. I still wasn’t used to the casualness with which Brix made human contact.
“They need to work it out,” Brix said calmly.
“Wren was yelling,” I argued.
Ender took a sip of coffee. “King probably said something moronic.”
“You’d know all about that,” Locke muttered.
Ender glared in our resident hacker’s direction as Hera tried to cover her laugh with a napkin. He turned that glare on her. “Got something to say, witch?”
Hera’s pale-green eyes flashed a deeper color, and sparks of energy zapped across the space, landing on Ender.
“Ow! Shit!” Ender jerked, spilling coffee on his shirt. “Seriously?”
“You know that term isn’t appreciated.” She took a bite of the egg casserole I’d spent hours on as we waited for Wren to wake. “But this is. Thank you, Puck.”
“Least I could do.” We’d never be able to repay Hera for what she’d done. We’d all seen what it cost her. Not the same as Wren, but enough that she’d gone to one of the bedrooms and slept for thirteen hours straight.
A phone dinged, and Brix pulled it out of his pocket. “Plane’s ready whenever we are.”
Good. That was good. We needed to get the hell out of Louisiana before Bastian and the Red River pack had a chance to recover. I glanced at Ender. “Any word from your source?”
Ender was protective of his informants, never divulging their identities. But he was beyond secretive about one in particular. We knew nothing about them except that they were plugged into the darkest places in the supernatural world and had an otherworldly knowledge of the happenings there.
