When he found three of them dead, arrows sticking out from their lupine forms, Valen howled with fury. Cress, Red and Lita would be avenged.
The fourth wolf made him stumble. Makisa hadn’t been killed with an arrow. Someone had shoved a dagger into her chest.
The losses were unacceptable, unnecessary and unfathomable. He couldn’t understand why they were happening.
Thinking about it wouldn’t help. Valen shot into the foray of fighting as soon as he could. In the flash of a second before he did, he saw how outnumbered his pack was. There were dozens, maybe even a hundred crazed humans stabbing and attacking his pack.
Aaron fought with him, shoulder to shoulder, and sometimes flank to flank. Valen saw Rivvie tearing through the attackers, literally ripping some of them limb from limb. It was violence on top of violence, and soon all he could smell was blood and gore, copper and rot. His paws slid in it when he moved, and his fur was coated in things he didn’t want to think about.
And still the humans came, shouting and spit flying, madness in their eyes.
Valen fought, and his pack fought with him, no matter what species they were. After what felt like half of eternity, the last body hit the ground.
Valen tried to catch his breath while he surveyed the mess. There’d be no more staying there. Flies would converge in a matter of hours, or minutes if the sun kept warming the area.
Aaron stood beside him, unharmed. For all the many lunatics attacking them, none had struck more than a glancing blow. Valen wondered what had happened to those who’d killed his pack members. They’d had more skill than any of those the pack had taken down.
The idea that there might be more skilled killers out there had Valen running back to where Makisa’s body was. He snorted a few times to clear the blood out of his nostrils, then he sniffed until he found a trail leading away from her. It was fresh. Whoever had killed her had merely been clearing the way for others to come through and cause harm.
With Aaron, he traced the scent back to a river. He lost it there. No matter where he went along the bank, he couldn’t find that trail again. Valen even crossed over to the other side but it was pointless. His prey had ridden the river down to a point farther than Valen was able to go at this time.
The same proved to be the case for the three men that had killed Cress, Red and Lita. Valen knew their sex by their scent, and it carried that same, acrid stench as those who’d killed his father and those who had attacked today.
Something was very, very wrong. Humans had not known of their existence until the End Times. Valen didn’t know the exact story, just that it was so.
Then humans no longer had their bombs and guns and weapons of mass destruction. With their population being close to extinct by their own foolishness, they posed no danger to shifters. Even so, the two species had never interacted, at least not as far as Valen knew.
And now, psychotic humans were coming from where?
Out of the fucking boulders?
And just to kill them! Valen couldn’t make any sense of it. The weather was as crazy as the enemy. Everything was changing from sensible to chaotic.
Rivvie and Matt met them and helped to get the bodies of their dead back to the pack. There’d be no burial ceremony for the evil fuckers that had murdered innocents, but there’d be a fire. Valen couldn’t leave so many bodies there to rot. His pack would howl and mourn their losses at a separate place.
Rivvie shifted first, but Valen and Aaron followed suit shortly thereafter.
Rivvie gestured at the gruesome carnage. “All males. No children, either. Something’s fucked up in the human society.”
“Has to be,” Matt agreed. “But were these people sane one day then mad and murderous the next? They couldn’t even fight well for the most part. It makes no sense.”
“So it could be a human-borne disease?” Aaron posited. “We shouldn’t have anyone touch them!”
“But we’ve done so before,” Matt pointed out. “When we fought in the village.”
Aaron chewed his bottom lip then flicked it with his tongue. “If it’s disease, it could take time to manifest.”
Matt paled so quickly he swayed. “So you’re saying everyone could be infected.”
Rivvie supported Matt with an arm around his waist. “There’s no way of knowing if that’s the case. Obviously, something is very wrong, though.”
He didn’t sound reassuring, and Valen admired him for not trying to make the situation sound less dire than it potentially could be.
“Riv is right. I wish we had some way to find out what’s causing this. Is it an illness, or is it desperation for food?” Valen dismissed that. “No, we hunted and found food easily enough. They could have done the same.”
“It’s a sickness. Has to be,” Aaron whispered. “Gods, Mom and Dad, and—” He looked at Matt.
“And me,” Matt whispered. “But not you.”
Valen went cold. “Not Aaron. He’s a shifter.”
“It could affect me,” Aaron said. “I’m not a natural-born shifter.”
Valen moved a few bloody strands of hair off Aaron’s brow. “You are, as naturally born into it as any of us. You were just born later in life.”
Aaron smiled a little. “I like that.”
“Human diseases aren’t contagious for us,” Valen added. “We can’t get it if that’s what’s happening.”
Rivvie tipped his head to side, a contemplative look on his face. “But humans can catch shifter…uh, shifter-y-ness. Aaron did.”
“Then he caught our immunity also,” Valen said. He wouldn’t accept anything else. Fuck it all, he would have it no other way. “These attackers seemed less, I don’t know, human-like, even, than the first ones we fought. Did anyone hear any of them speak?”
Aaron shook his head. “I didn’t, and that’s weird.”
“The smart ones ran for the river.” Valen growled in frustration. “They still reeked. Not nearly as bad as these ones.” He waved a hand toward several bodies. “These are atrocious. The ones that got away? They weren’t half as wretched smelling as these.”
“A disease,” Aaron said again. “As it progresses, it either causes them to decay or maybe they simply won’t bathe.”
“Whatever it is, we have to put an end to it.” Valen watched his people gather together, helping one another, and mourning those lost. “We need our shaman. We need help.”
He just hoped they got it in time. There were only so many times they could fight off numerous bands of attackers. The next battle could be the last, depending on how many they faced and what mental capabilities the warped humans had.
Then there were the other nightmare scenarios he couldn’t dismiss.
What if this disease or whatever it was, was indeed contagious? Would it tear his pack in two? If the wolves had to kill people they’d come to know and love, what then?
And what if, even having been turned into a shifter, Aaron
wasn’t
safe?
For that matter, if shifters weren’t immune, the damage they could do as mad, murdering beasts would truly herald an end to humanity, and in all likelihood, to shifters as well.
The only hope would be that the oceans would keep such a disease contained to an extent.
But for all he knew, there was no life anywhere else on the planet, or humans everywhere were turning into insane murderers.
“You look so grim. We’ll figure this out,” Aaron said. “This isn’t going to defeat us.”
Valen hoped he’d have the conviction Aaron did. Right then, he was doom and gloom incarnate. “We need Lanaka. We need our shaman to help guide us through these times.”
“I’ll go find her,” Rivvie said.
Beal stepped forward, away from the people she’d been helping. “No, I’ll go. Rivvie needs to stay here and help you,” she said to Valen. “It’s his duty as your beta. Matthew needs the comfort of his lover in these times. I’ve known Lanaka for a very long time. I’ll find her, and I’ll find my pack again.”
Valen tipped his head in agreement. “Be careful, Mother.” He hugged her and told her he loved her before she moved into Rivvie’s arms.
Valen hoped he wasn’t fucking up.
Chapter Seventeen
The red cliffs filled with the sounds of wolves and people singing. They mourned their dead as a fire burned miles behind them, scourging the earth clean of the lifeless bodies left behind and, Valen hoped, whatever disease had made them act as they’d done.
If it wasn’t a disease, he didn’t know what that would mean. He couldn’t dwell on it right then, either. It was time to pay his respects to those the pack had lost. He closed off his thoughts and gave his thanks and love to the four brave wolves that had died protecting their pack.
He sang with his people, his wolves, for hours, until his ability to vocalize was almost gone and exhaustion permeated his bones. Then Valen let Aaron lead him to a private spot where the waterfall splashed close by, close enough that the droplets from it mingled with his tears. Both soaked his fur.
Losing anyone he’d been responsible for hurt, deep down into his soul. However it’d come about, he knew he’d failed them. There were dozens of places he could have turned the pack in a different direction rather than settling them there in that red-earth place.
Aaron moved closer to him, nosing at Valen’s cheek. Slowly, Valen moved past his grief. It wasn’t gone, but he’d taken the time to mourn, and he had to keep living.
When Aaron whined at him and went down on his belly, it wasn’t playfulness. Aaron needed the same comfort and escape from death that Valen did. They found it together as wolves, not that form mattered. Their love was the same, their loyalty as strong whether they were wolves or men.
As he slept, Valen was plagued with nightmares. Every one of his fears was coming out to torment him. He curled his body around Aaron’s, noticing that he didn’t cover Aaron as well as he had that first time they’d cuddled after Aaron shifted.
Valen went very still. He focused all of his attention on Aaron. He became certain that Aaron
was
growing, and it gave him hope. If Aaron had turned into a shifter, he’d be immune to human illnesses. He’d have to be safe from the monstrous men who’d wanted them dead.
Shifters would be safe from catching the disease. There was no reason for them not to be. Valen would cling to that thread of logic when doubts tried to encroach on him.
* * * *
Rivvie knew he and Mattie weren’t the only ones seeking comfort. There was probably more fucking going on than not. The gender pairings didn’t matter, nor did the number involved, as long as everyone was agreeable to what they were doing.
All Rivvie wanted was Mattie. Finding a place to be alone wasn’t happening for them. They did avoid all the sleeping pups and kids, as had the other adults who were being intimate. Rivvie stopped six feet away from a mass of writhing bodies. At least it was the good kind of writhing, with the scent of sex redolent in the air.
Several couples and a few larger groups formed a loose circle of sexual bliss. Rivvie arched an eyebrow at Mattie. “Too much?”
Mattie shook his head almost frantically. “Gods, no. I’m about to come just from watching everyone else. From hearing them.” He moaned and cupped his own erection.
He did look like he was hovering near the edge. “Let me get you out of that danger zone, then.” Rivvie went down on his knees, pushed Matt’s hand aside, and tugged Matt’s cock from his pants.
Matt didn’t protest.
“Touch yourself,” Rivvie said before opening his mouth and taking Matt’s dick in from tip to root. He rubbed his nose against the crisp curls surrounding the base of Matt’s shaft, and inhaled deeply.
Then he swallowed.
“Fuck!” Matt folded over him, his belly against the top of Rivvie’s head. Cum jettisoned from his cock.
Rivvie pulled back as much as he could so he’d get more of Matt’s flavor on his tongue. “Better?” he asked, once Matt stood up again.
Matt gave him a wicked smile and began playing with his dick. “Can I fuck you again?”
Rivvie was actually prepared. He’d had to use grease and it wasn’t nearly as pleasantly scented as the oils Lanaka made. It’d be more than sufficient regardless. “Yeah, you can.”
Instead of standing, Rivvie went down on his elbows, his ass up in offering to Matt. “All ready to go.”
“How’d you do that?” Matt asked, reached between Rivvie’s cheeks and touching his slick hole.
“When you were checking on your dad, I borrowed some grease from Ellis. Knew he’d consider lubricant a necessity when he packed to evacuate.” Rivvie waggled his eyebrows. “Mount up, Mattie.”
Matt instead pushed what felt like two fingers right into Rivvie’s ass. “Funny thing, I’m not in such a hurry now.”
“Mattie,” Rivvie whined, trying to tip his hips just so. If he could get those fingers in the right spot— “Oh yeah, right there.”
Matt cupped Rivvie’s balls. He rolled them while he pressed his digits in faster and with more force. Then be bit Rivvie on the right cheek.
Rivvie yelped and wasn’t sure he liked that. “Can you do it again?” he asked. He had to be certain.
“You could bite me, like you wanted to this morning, when you were sliding your cock between my legs,” Matt said, his voice low and dripping sex. “Bite me, and hold me down. Pin me to the ground while you fuck me.”
Rivvie gasped and sat up.
Matt kept his fingers where they were. “What? You didn’t think I’d ever want to?”
“No, actually.” Rivvie’s eyes crossed when Matt wiggled those digits deep inside him. “I—I thought maybe way down the line,
maybe.
”
“You love it, and when I feel this—” He stroked his fingertips over Rivvie’s inner walls. “When you moan and you quiver inside, that’s unadulterated pleasure. Why wouldn’t I want to know what it’s like?”
“And the biting?” Rivvie asked, uncertain he wanted the truth of that.
Matt smirked. “I came so hard that I think I lost my vision when you bit me before. It didn’t hurt.”
“You don’t think my teeth sinking into your flesh would hurt?” Rivvie couldn’t help but inquire. “Seriously?”
That turned Matt’s smirk into a frown. “But I liked it when you, you know.” He gave their fucking neighbors a furtive glance. “When you spanked me, it really,
really
turned me on, as much as that bite did. I wouldn’t want to do either every day, and I want to do so many filthy things to you, too. Gods, Riv, it makes my head spin, how much I want you.”