Well, at least from Beal and Aaron. Valen was great at doing that silent and strong alpha thing. The tears that he’d cried when Aaron had been in such pain had been an understandable exception, and no one would fault someone for being upset if their mate was going through what Aaron had.
I could go follow that trail again. See if they’ve gotten far, if they’re safe. No one would notice or care if I was gone for a few hours now.
Night was fast approaching. Surely Walter would have everyone with him stop and rest.
Rivvie could track them and run a lot faster as a wolf, so that’s what he did. Even with the mud and puddles, he was able to find Matt’s scent. It grew stronger farther out, which meant the rain had stopped by the time Matt had passed through there.
It didn’t take Rivvie too long to spot them. Over an hour and a half of running flat-out, and he was less than three dozen yards from them.
Rivvie slowed to a halt and studied the scene ahead of him, trying to comprehend it. Seven people were in a semi-circle facing off with three others. He flicked his ears, impatient to reach Matt.
What? No! I’m not going to let him know I’m here. I’m just making sure he’s okay. Not interfering. Not at all.
The whistling sound that cut through the air startled Rivvie.
Then he saw it—the long, pointed projectile that speared right into one of the forms. He blinked. Had he really just seen someone get shot with an arrow?
A second one whistled through the air.
The first person who’d been shot collapsed as several people screamed.
Rivvie bolted into action, using his powerful hind legs to leap forward. He didn’t bark or growl in warning, and he didn’t run to the pack deserters. Rivvie veered to the right and went after the fucker with the bow and arrows. Matt wasn’t stupid. He’d have everyone take cover, somewhere.
If Matt hadn’t been shot.
Rivvie couldn’t think about that. He slowed his approach, putting his best hunting skills forward. He caught an acrid scent that was disgustingly familiar. It was the same one they’d discovered when hunting the marauders that had attacked Varex’s pack and slaughtered too many of them.
There was no time to wonder how any had survived or if they were from another village or clan or whatever humans would call themselves. Rivvie heard another arrow being notched, the creak of the bowstring being pulled back. The sound of the projectile being set free to harm someone else set Rivvie’s anger into high gear. He saw the man reaching over his shoulder and into his quiver.
The sadistic glee on the bastard’s face was clearly evident. He also had an erection tenting the pelt covering his groin.
Rivvie was sickened. He didn’t hesitate. With two leaps, he was on the man, ripping and tearing at him. He hated the taste of the murdering fucker’s blood, the dirt and shit smell of him. He hated the way the man had been turned on by hurting others, that he made it necessary for Rivvie to kill him.
Which Rivvie did, as quickly as he could get his mouth around the jerk’s neck and crush it. That done, Rivvie spat and hacked, trying to get the taste of tainted blood from his mouth. Whether it was truly filthy or not, it was disgusting to him. He didn’t want to ingest any of it if he could prevent it.
“Rivvie?” he heard a familiar masculine voice whisper. “It’s you, isn’t it?”
Had Matt already forgotten what Rivvie looked like in wolf form? After only having been gone for mere hours?
Matt called out a little louder. “Rivvie? Riv? I didn’t see you, so maybe I’m wrong. If I’m wrong, I’m sorry, but if you’re Rivvie, please don’t leave.”
Rivvie was so torn he was surprised he didn’t split in two. He froze while steady footsteps announced Matt’s impending arrival.
“Rivvie?”
Matt sounded less certain of who had saved them from further attack, and wary in general. “Is that you? Please, don’t leave. Walter—Dad—he’s been shot with an arrow and it’s…it’s bad.”
Having lost his own father not long ago, Rivvie was unable to abandon Matt, despite the ease with which Matt had abandoned
him.
Aware that he was a bloody mess, Rivvie licked his chops and promptly gagged at the nasty taste.
Fuck this. I’m shifting. He can deal with the gore.
Rivvie quickly morphed into his man form and wiped his hands over his mouth.
“It is you,” Matt said, stepping out of the cover of dense shrubs. He slumped, his shoulders rounding. “I’m sorry. I—”
“It doesn’t matter,” Rivvie interrupted. He didn’t want to hear any lame excuses. “You left. That’s it.”
Matt blanched, and he reeled back a step. “You can’t mean that.”
Rivvie was tired of being a fool, in his eyes especially. “I can. Where’s Walter?”
“This way.” Matt didn’t argue with him or look at Rivvie again.
Rivvie expected the humans to screech and run like he was the crazy fucker with the bow and arrow. They didn’t. All of them were decent to him, even Anita, thought that may have been due to her crying and clinging to Walter.
“He’s alive,” Rivvie noted.
Walter lay face down, the arrow piercing his back, close to the shoulder blade. He was able to speak, was in fact trying to assure Anita that he wasn’t going to die.
“Yes, but he’s bleeding,” Matt pointed out.
Rivvie wanted to snap that he wasn’t as dumb as Matt believed him to be. Instead, uncertain of his reception, he crouched on the other side of Walter. “I can get him back to where the rest of the pack is, but this arrow will have to come out first.”
“Shit, that’s going to hurt,” someone said from behind them.
“Shut up, Cillian,” another person shouted. “Stop being an asshole, if you think you can manage that.”
Rivvie was surprised that Anita would even look at him. “What do you want me to do?”
“It has to come out, I agree,” she said between sniffles. “I’m not strong enough to do it. The angle—”
“Yeah, it’s got to be pulled up, or more damage will be done,” Rivvie observed. He was good with angles and trajectory, figuring which way to kick a rock to make it land where he wanted to, things like that. Not the most useful of skills for the most part. “It’s going to hurt. I’m sorry.” He gripped the arrow right above where it was embedded, then farther down the shaft as well. “On the count of three.”
He waited until he got a nod from Anita and Walter both.
“One…two…”
“Argh!” Walter shrieked.
Rivvie’s heart almost stopped on him as he yelped and let go of the arrow. “I didn’t even pull on it!” he exclaimed, pressing a hand to his chest. “Sweet baby goat turds, you scared ten years off my life!”
“I thought you were going to go on two,” Walter offered weakly.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, I said on three and I fucking meant on three!” Rivvie thumped his chest just to make sure his stupid heart was still beating in there. He gripped the arrow again. It was tempting to just jerk the damned thing out with no warning after Walter had pulled that stunt.
But Rivvie wasn’t an asshole. “Let’s try it again. On three.
Three
, that’s t-h-r-e-e, in case you’re uncertain.” He was maybe a little bit of an asshole. “One, two, three.” He pulled. There was resistance, then the arrow came out.
Walter howled in agony.
Rivvie grimaced at the sound of Walter’s pain. “I hope if I ever get shot with an arrow, it just kills me,” he muttered after he’d backed away.
“I don’t.”
Rivvie turned to find Matt beside him. “Go away. Help your father. Better yet, help your mother help your father stop bleeding. That’d be a good mother-father-son project.”
Matt’s lips thinned as he glared at Rivvie.
Rivvie did his best to ignore him. “Have you got the bleeding slowed down any?” he called out to Anita.
“Almost. It’s packed with material, at least, and Walter passed out, so he’s quieter.” Anita stood and scrubbed at her face. Then she crossed over to Rivvie. “We were wrong to be angry. To be scared. You don’t know how hard it is to see your child suffer. You will never know that. You can’t understand—”
Rivvie wasn’t feeling charitable at all. “Your apology sucks, but it’s accepted. For what it’s worth, you don’t know what I do and don’t understand.” He left Anita standing there with her heartless son.
Let the two of them chat about what a dick I am. They’d be right.
He wasn’t proud of his temperamental, petty comments.
Walter was indeed still unconscious. Rivvie had Cillian help him lift Walter. Rivvie could have done it on his own, but not without a lot of jostling. Once he had Walter, Rivvie simply strode off. The others could follow him or not.
He did
not
hope Matthew was next in line behind him—or that Matthew was staring at Rivvie’s ass, mourning what he’d lost.
And he
especially
wasn’t hoping that Matt was at least a little miserable and in love with him.
Definitely not.
Chapter Thirteen
Valen had seen Rivvie leave. He’d have gone after Riv if Beal hadn’t come to talk to him. Now that they’d made their peace—a relatively simple act of them both talking for a few minutes—Valen was itching to go after Rivvie and see if he could help him. How, Valen wasn’t certain. Lend an ear or a shoulder, he supposed.
He wouldn’t rush Aaron and Beal, so he had to wait. Beal was trying. He’d give her that, and Aaron was eager to form a relationship with her. He was practically bouncy with energy. Valen wondered if Aaron thought being a shifter would automatically get him into Beal’s good graces.
It wouldn’t, but if she meant what she’d said, then loving Valen was enough to do it. There was no reason for him to doubt her. Beal had never been a liar. She’d just been mad with pain and he understood that. The problem was, he didn’t want it directed at Aaron, or anyone else in the pack.
He could admit he hadn’t handled the situation with her well.
Like that. Thinking of it as a situation, when my father was murdered, her husband was murdered. I couldn’t survive without Aaron. She’s stronger than me, and I should have cut her some slack, spent more time with her. Instead I was too busy trying to integrate the villagers into the pack. Was it all for Aaron, or was it for me, my own pride? What the fuck did I think I was? The great uniter of the world?
Valen’s thoughts kept cycling around to the same issues. After a while, he joined Aaron and Beal to hunt for food. As much as he wanted to find Rivvie, he did have to take care of the pack.
The land they had stopped at must have been a desert not that long ago. The world had changed, though, and with it, the weather patterns—even so, Valen was still suspicious about the storm. Water was everywhere, and soon enough, surely there’d be green plants growing.
There was no food until they crossed out of the sandy area and into the bare bones of a forest. It was completely unfamiliar territory to them. Valen had originally left Varex’s pack and made his way to Aaron’s village. That was as much of the land outside his pack property as he’d ever seen.
But the flood had forced them to move away from the river, which Valen had followed out the first time he’d left. Now they were northeast of the pack lands and Valen was startled at the difference in the terrain, like the wet desert he’d had the pack hunker down in.
Even the scant forest was different than what he’d seen before. The trees looked more dead than alive, and most of the bark was black or gray. There weren’t many leaves on the limbs, but he supposed the horrible winds could have blown them away.
The fact that they easily tracked down several rabbits meant there was food to be had. The land couldn’t be as barren as it appeared to be. If he got the chance, Valen intended to come back and inspect the territory later.
Once he’d provided food for the pack, Valen was free to find Rivvie. Aaron joined him on the hunt and an hour later, they found Rivvie and Matt, along with the other pack members who’d fled. Walter was cursing up a storm—Valen could almost see a whirlwind coming out of his mouth—and proclaiming the he could ‘damn well walk on my own!’
Rivvie’s face lit with relief. “Valen, thank you, thank you, thank you for coming. Here, take him—”
Matt’s pinched expression was the opposite of Rivvie’s. Matt stayed behind Rivvie and to his left.
Valen would bet theirs had been an uneasy companionship during their return walk back. Then again, he didn’t think he’d even call it a companionship. Rivvie had a fake smile plastered on and he had a hint of desperation in his eyes.
Valen shifted, Aaron joining him in their forms as men. “He’s hurt?”
“Arrow to the back,” Rivvie said, sounding too happy.
He was trying not to let his inner pain show. Valen knew his brother well enough to understand that.
“I’m fine,” Walter grumbled. “I can walk. I don’t need—”
“You’ll let Valen decide what you need,” Anita snapped. She rushed to stand before him. “I’m sorry. We’re sorry. We panicked and behaved like fools.”
Valen nodded. “Anyone want to explain what the hell happened?” He helped Rivvie to get Walter on his feet.
Walter promptly passed out mid-curse.
“Men and their pride,” Anita said. “He’s injured worse than he’d want you to think. After how we acted and the things we said, Walter’s ashamed of himself and he’s hurting on top of that.”
Valen struggled not to snarl as he hefted Walter into his arms. “Again. What happened?”
Matthew stepped forward and turned to look right at Rivvie. “We left, unfortunately, but some of us had gone along to try and talk sense into those who wanted to flee. We weren’t all abandoning the pack.”
Rivvie’s cheeks turned ruddy and he kept his head turned aside, as if he couldn’t stand to look at Matt.
“What we saw was frightening, but for some of us, it was…exciting,” Matt whispered. “A promise of what we might become. You aren’t the weaker one here, Rivvie. Shifters aren’t, I mean. We are. All of us humans are, and we know it.”
Valen growled. “Save your true love confessions for later and tell me
what the fuck happened!
” Gods, he would have smacked Matt upside the head if he wasn’t holding Walter.