Mayhem: The Order of the Wolf, Book 5 (14 page)

Chapter Twenty-Five

“Mayhem is here. I feel him,” Hannah said again.

Mayhem was near. Not getting closer, no. Any movement she felt, any thought of him coming closer had suddenly stopped. But he was there—she could feel him in her bones.

At her first declaration, Allan and Kelly had bolted from the room. Moments later, Hannah could hear shouts from the lower level of the house. She’d left her room to investigate and paused at the top of the stairs, looking down at the main foyer with a bird’s eye view. There were men everywhere, all carrying weapons, coming in from various doors, having quick, deliberate conversations and moving toward the back of the house, under her perch and away from her sight. Their energy pulsed through her, controlled emotions from warriors that she easily shifted to the side. What she needed to know, what impacted her most was their conviction. They were honor-bound to fight the beasts.

“The boundaries have been breached.” A tall, hotter than hot man with shoulder length blond hair approached Kelly. “Do you have the strength to fight?”

Kelly’s look was one of determination, like that question shouldn’t have been asked. She gave a tight nod.

“Candy will have to come as well,” the man said. “Jeremy is bonding her right now.”

Kelly’s eyes shot wide for seconds before she regained her composure. “Too young, Lance,” she muttered.

“But necessary,” Lance replied as he lifted his hand to squeeze her shoulder.

“It’s Talia.” Allan came into view carrying a huge sword in his hands. “She’s brought a pack of beasts. They’ve circumvented the boundary somehow. ETA is less than a minute.”

Hannah gasped as another flood of emotion walloped into her. Anger. Pure unadulterated rage was coming for them, the beasts, en masse. “So many of them.”

Allan glanced up at her, his brow furrowed. “Get back into your room, Hannah.”

But something told her that she wouldn’t be doing that. No. She wouldn’t be hiding. Beasts were coming and she was born to fight. Wait. Born to fight? Beasts? She gave her head a shake, stumbling against the railing of the stairs. Mayhem was a beast. A wolf.

Oh god.

Allan made a move to come up the stairs but his attention was pulled away by the shout of another man. “The beasts are engaged. Allan, Lance, bring Kelly outside. We need to start cutting the bastards down before they find a way into Wolves’ Bane.”

Hannah moved back a few steps when Allan glanced up at her again, his eyes telling her to stay put, his heart screaming other things at her. She turned away, blocked his emotions with her newly acquired skills, then opened herself to Mayhem’s.

He was moving again. Coming for her with all of his love, concern, frustration. Possessive fury underlined it all.
Mine
, his emotions said.

She moved down the hall quickly, away from the chaos of the main stairwell, following her instinct to take her where she needed to go. At the other end of the hall was an inconspicuous door that opened to a second staircase. A servant passage—not uncommon in old homes.

She slipped inside and down, following the narrow staircase to the main floor. It continued further and she could hear noise from below, but she needed to get outside, not underground.

The bond she now shared with Allan, her ability to control her powers, also came with things she didn’t know how to process but were nonetheless very handy. Like knowing that if she made a right and then a left, and then followed another hallway past two doors, she would find a little alcove-like room that would take her outside to the grand backyard. As she stepped through the door, a blast of cool air assailed her lungs followed by the smell of blood.

She took a few steps forward, her eyes adjusting to the darkness, the muted glow of the moon combined with the lanterns of light that dotted the expansive lawn, marking the edge of the forest, helped her see what was going on. Growling, shouting, grunts, groans slammed into her, along with a range of emotions, chaotic feelings that she’d felt while in the house, rage trumping them all. Before her was a battlefield and Mayhem was unidentifiable in the melee…if he was even a part of it yet.

She shook her head, strained her eyes to take it all in. Men with swords, knives, other lethal looking weapons were fighting the beasts. Beasts like she’d encountered already. Hairy, fangs gleaming with saliva, up on hind legs, claws swiping, snarling. Hannah scanned the crowd again, her eyes growing wider. This was war. A battle from fantasy-land. Beasts and humans. And she had no idea what side she was supposed to be on. What she was seeing, the aggression from the beasts—that was not what Mayhem was. He was not a monster, no matter what he’d looked like in her dream.

Kelly stood side by side with another woman. A very young-looking woman. She couldn’t have been more than nineteen, maybe twenty. Both women held a sword in one hand and a blade in the other. They were in fighting stances, legs braced, faces smeared with blood. As the Hunters fought the wolves, they’d open briefly to allow one of the women access. A sword thrust or blade coming in a sweeping arch and one of the beasts fell back, screeching with pain, outrage, and then the Hunters would close ranks again. It was orchestrated. Practiced. These men knew what they were doing. And the women did too.

Instinct pushed at Hannah, desire to join with the Huntresses, fight alongside Allan. She gave her head a hard shake.
You don’t belong in this world.
Even if Allan’s years of training were urging her to pick up a weapon and join the fray.
Nope, nah uh, not going to happen.

Hannah shifted to the side, wanting to make a run for it but needing to clear the worst of the fighting by a good thirty yards. Her thoughts were focused—no panic, no hesitation. She would run. Mayhem was coming for her, moving closer by the second and she planned on meeting him and then going in the opposite direction, away from the Order for good.

She stepped out of the doorway. Made it about ten steps. And then one of the beasts caught sight of her. Her mind flashed back to her first experience with a werewolf. Fangs bared, monstrous creature with murder in its eyes. The grotesque thing let out a bone-shaking roar, dropped to a malformed four-paw formation and charged her.

Hannah froze, eyes wide, body shaking.
Run!
She screamed and yet her legs remained still. Death was coming at her. She reached to her side, expecting she’d find a weapon there. Nothing met her roving fingers.
Oh god…oh god…

She shuttered her eyes, wanting to slam them shut as she raised her arms to cover her head, dropping low in a crouch for impact. A black wolf slammed into the beast, taking it by surprise and sending it off course, stumbling out of its strange posture.

The black wolf took advantage, muzzle dropping in a flash, teeth ripping out the beast’s throat in a spray of blood that splattered against Hannah’s face. The black wolf turned on her, blooding dripping, teeth bared, blue eyes beseeching.

Mayhem.

She opened her mouth to shout his name, relief tumbling with fear. It was not safe for him here. She reached a hand out, ready to go anywhere with him. Allan came out of nowhere, jumping onto Mayhem’s back, sword sinking into his throat. At the exact same moment, he tossed a blade toward Hannah, the bloody thing landing at her feet.

“Hannah, kill the beast. You’re a Huntress! Do your duty,” Allan bellowed as he twisted the sword and began to pull it out.

Duty, yes.
She bent down to retrieve the knife he’d tossed. For the Order, for Allan, she would do this. The second her fingers wrapped around the hilt a range of emotions snapped back at her. Love. Fear. Confusion.

Mayhem is my mate. I love him.

Allan raised his own blade to impale Mayhem’s flesh once again, his sword still jutting from Mayhem’s body as the wolf hit the ground, eyes closing, a whoosh of breath expelled on impact.

Horrified at her own actions, confusion tearing her apart, terrified that Allan would strike again, Hannah screamed as she clenched the knife, raising it, wanting to rip Allan away from Mayhem.

And then he was down too, an expression of utter astonishment flashing on his face before he collapsed to the ground completely. Hannah looked from one to the other. Both of her supposed mates bloody, barely breathing. Down.

“You don’t want to kill the wolf.” A woman was standing over Allan, a blood soaked prong-like weapon in her hand. “I made a promise to Mayhem that I’d get him to you. There you are. He’s not dead. Only a Huntress can kill the beasts.” She nudged Allan with her boot. “This one on the other hand, I believe he’s already a goner.”

“You killed him?” Hannah gasped, her heart pounding for a man she barely knew and yet felt something for.

“You’re welcome.” The woman sneered. “Consider it a favor.”

Staring with disbelief, she watched the woman turn and walk toward the worst of the fighting, closer to Kelly and the others.

Hannah dropped to her knees between the two, touching Allan’s throat, feeling for a pulse. She pressed her fingers into his flesh. Nothing. She closed her eyes and opened herself up to Allan, suddenly mourning when she met only silence. He was dead. Anything he felt for her was dead. And a part of her was empty somehow.

She wanted to cry—that would be the right thing to do—but the sadness was suddenly enveloped by hope, by tenderness, love. She opened her eyes and looked down at the black wolf by her side.

The wolf lifted his head. Blue eyes, so familiar glanced up at her.

“Mayhem,” she whispered.

The wolf blinked and snorted. Communicating with her in the only way it could. No, that wasn’t totally true. She turned her attention fully to the emotions coming from Mayhem, cautiously letting a tiny stream of it through, fearful of opening herself up too much and feeling the chaos around her.

Mayhem’s love slammed her hard. Love, fear for her. Urgency to run.
Run.

The wolf shifted to his feet, stumbling a little to the side.
Run.

She stood, glanced toward the fighting and then blinked hard. Everything had stopped. Like a tableau, all the players in the battle were frozen. The woman who had killed Allan stepped toward Kelly, her weapon still coated in blood, teasing the point of it against Kelly’s throat.

“The fighting was fun, but it’s time to put this battle to rest.” She moved around Kelly, trailing the weapon over her shoulders. “You see now what I can do? So much more powerful than you ever will be.” She laughed bitterly. “Oh, Kelly, you want to speak,” she mocked. “Okay, fine, speak. Beg for your life if you’d like.”

“Talia,” Kelly said on an explosion of breath. “We didn’t want you gone! We wanted you here with us, fighting alongside.”

“Like hell you did.” Talia sneered as she returned to Kelly’s front, weapon now pressed to her chest. “I’m damaged, my powers were waning. Useless to the Order.”

“Whoever told you that—”

Talia scoffed. “It was true, Kelly, I was useless. After Devon was murdered, when I started losing my powers, that wasn’t the only thing. My strength started going too, everything that made me a Huntress, disappearing. The only way to get it back was to find my beast.” She leaned in closer. “And his bite—whoa, it was like nothing I’d ever expected.”

Talia pulled away from Kelly, shifting backward until she was almost next to one of her beasts. “And you know the best thing?” With a bellowing yell, she slammed her weapon back, imbedding it deeply into the chest of the beast. The creature slid to the ground, taking Talia’s weapon with it, dying without a sound. “Even when he died, my powers stayed strong.” She motioned to Kelly’s side where the other woman still stood. “Pull out your blade and place it against Candy’s throat.”

“No, Talia, no, please…” Kelly begged even as she did what she was told.

“Shut up,” Talia snarled.

Hannah took a step forward. Mayhem nipped her jeans, tugged her back again.

“No more taking orders from men, sweets. Or from you, one who is governed by men.” Talia bent down and yanked her weapon from the beast’s chest.

Hannah felt bile rise. The woman was totally unhinged.

“You can join me or you can die. What say you, Kelly, wanna join my pack? Rule the world?” Talia pointed her weapon at the women.

“Fuck you,” Kelly said.

Talia laughed. “So be it. Kelly, you’re going to slit Candy’s—”

“No!” Hannah shouted, jumping forward as best she could with a huge wolf tugging on her pants. “Stop!”

“Shit!” Talia swore as she glanced toward Hannah. “I thought you’d be long gone by now. Listen, bitch, I don’t owe you or your wolf any more favors. Get out of here before I kill you too.”

Hannah didn’t budge.

Talia cocked an eyebrow. “I said move it, Huntress, turn around and walk into the forest.”

Mayhem growled, releasing Hannah’s pants to step in front of her, like he was guarding her.

Talia’s eyebrows shot sky high. “Allan bonded with you? Figures. Bonded to both, you’ve got immunity from me.” She shrugged. “So I can’t control you, fine. But I can control your mate. Mayhem, you know who holds the power here.” She snickered a little. “Take your woman and go, and that’s an order, wolf.”

With a rumbling growl, Mayhem turned and began pushing Hannah back, marshalling her away with his bulk, his emotions letting her know just how displeased he was to be controlled. She almost stumbled on Allan’s body as Mayhem pushed and pushed, a wave of mourning washing over her once again.

Allan. What could she do to fix this? Her gut was telling her to do something, anything. He’d want her to. Rage and fear. Two of the most powerful emotions. That was what he had said.

Control them and you control everything.

Rage. Yes. There was much rage here. She dropped to her knees next to Allan’s body, forcing Mayhem to stop pushing her. Surprised when he moved around her back, snapped the waist of her jeans and began pulling her, almost dragging her.

Rage.

Ignoring what Mayhem was doing, she closed her eyes and opened herself up, trusting that whatever Allan had given her in their moment of bonding would guide her in the right direction. She needed rage. She needed to amp up what was happening. She took a deep breath, sought out the color of anger. It was everywhere. Angry red, blistering oranges, smoldering yellows, licking at her like a flame. She stoked it. Revving the emotion beyond where it was, pulling it together, pumping it higher. Back-building in intensity, she let it roll out like a tsunami.