The All Encompassing: Shifter MC Novel (Pureblood Predator MC Book 1) (32 page)

“Run, Rodas!” Tamara screams.
 

Run? The Night Stalker does not run.
 

I leap for the first man while the others throw metal canisters in my direction. Green-grey smoke hisses into the room. My first breath of the foul smoke makes my lungs heave so hard it feels like they’re lifting into my throat. I shriek and punch my claws into the closest man’s neck, showering black blood across the room.
 

My lungs are on fire. My eyes tear up, blurring my vision.

I have angered you, O Lord of Blood.
 

I who am only a commoner. I who am waste. I who am stillborn.
 

I fling the man in front of me into another behind, knocking them both out the penthouse window. Another breath of the poison green-grey smoke and this time my throat seizes closed and I can’t breathe, and the blackness swoops over me like a vulture swooping for a kill. I’m nearly blind, but I can still sense them, so I run at a third man, bite his neck open, then something solid smashes into me, two-three-four times, and I’m flung off the man and into the wall.
 

My own voice echoes through the temple, shrieking in agony, but the pain is far away.

I release myself to you, O Night Lord.
 

I Offer myself to you. Accept this commoner. This stillborn wretch.
 

I lift my head to inspect the source of such pain.
 

Four ragged holes have opened in my chest.
 

I blink, not understanding. Who are these offerings? Why has the Night Wind forsaken me? Why has the Cloud Temple been desecrated? Was it because I showed weakness with the female offering?

Yes. That must be it.
 

I should have bled her like the thousands who bled before. She is no different. A foul seductress of this world. She weakened my devotion to the One I Am Slave To. Discovered my body’s weakness and used it against me.
 

Tore me from my one purpose. From truth.
 

The urge to feed on the seductress’s black heart gives me the strength to rise to my knees.
 

“…O Night Lord have you mistaken me for another?” I scream. “I who am a commoner, a laborer. In excrement and in filth my life is lived…”

Two of the black-clothed men stand over me, each pointing something long and made of metal that looks similar to the cattle prod the Keeper once used on me.

“Death is freedom,” I whisper as my red blood pours from my mouth.

The men lift their weapons.
 

“Release me,” I beg.

One of the masked men chuckles.
 

“No you fucking bastards! We need him alive,” Tamara screams, collapsing to her knees and raising her hands. “We need him alive,” she stammers, her voice weak. “The First Fallen demands his
blood
.”
 

I blink, trying to understand.
 

The female offering. Tamara.
 

Speaking to the men attacking me? Commanding them?
 

The lying, treacherous whore.
 

This pain is her doing.

She wants to offer my blood to her false god.
 

“Release me,” I whisper, reaching up to hold the end of the enemy’s weapon and draw it to my temple. “I will rise with the Night Wind. I will breathe in the Restless Wind. I will sing in the Whispering Wind.”

“No!” Tamara screams.

The ignorant female. She doesn’t even know what she wants.
 

She lacks clarity. Truth. Faith.

Shame floods through me. I’ve offended you, O Night Lord. You will not permit death to free me. I’ll roam for all eternity in the Bloodless Land. A caged shadow. A prisoner.
 

“Put on the fucking mask, Tamara,” one of my attackers screams. “Or you die with this asshole.”

“Kill him and the Fallen will feed on your heart,” Tamara says, standing and slipping the mask the man offers over her face. “Rodas is not a Pureblood.”

Her voice sounds odd through the mask.
 

Mechanical. Unnatural. Evil.
 

I want to offer her. More than I’ve wanted anything, ever. And the desire for this last offering pulls me from devotion, makes me want to remain in this stillborn world just long enough to bleed the woman named Tamara.
 

I close my eyes, release my attacker’s weapon and slump to the floor, suddenly tired.
 

So tired.
 

Choking, poisonous smoke filters into my blood, robbing me of the Night Stalker’s power.
 

My claws and fangs retract.
 

“He bleeds red,” the man who handed Tamara the mask says. “He’s a Pureblood. You fucked a Pureblood, you whore.”

“Rodas is his
packmate
,” Tamara screams, stepping between me and my attackers. “I fucked the First Fallen’s packmate.” Tamara laughs, a long, high-pitched laugh that sounds…insane. “You idiots! Do you now what this means? I have his
seed
. A direct link to…don’t you dare kill him, you fucking idiots!”
 

She’s proud. I hear it in her voice. The foul seductress.

“This one is a Risen?”

“Yes,” Tamara says. “The second most powerful of his newborn pack.”

“Stand down,” the masked man says. “We take him alive.”
 

He sounds disappointed.

So am I.
 

“A
ARON
LOOK
OUT
!” Mia yells, and I realize I’ve been standing frozen, watching my old bro Lonny go full animal in a fucking Stricken lair and not doing a thing about it.

The massive black panther hits me full in the chest, knocking me over and digging its claws into my shoulders, and it’s only when I feel those long claws pierce my skin that I realize just how off my game I am. Damn. I roll under the thing while its jaws snap inches from my ear, then hurl it into the apartment wall.
 

The panther’s not fully formed yet; its hindquarters are weak and still bending into shape, and I know if we have a hope of surviving we have to kill it before it’s fully born.
 

Nash and Mia and me circle around the creature while it spits and hisses.

“C’mon, Lonny,” I say, still hoping there’s a chance I can turn him and feeling like shit for feeding him that Stricken spawn’s heart. “It’s us, Lonny. Your crew. C’mon back.”

The panther stares at me, its eyes narrowed, then curls its lips over its fangs and roars.

Fuck it. This mess is on me.
 

I fake right, then step left and pounce on the half-formed panther’s broad shoulders, wrapping my arms around its neck and squeezing with everything I got. The cat rears back, lifting me up—for an instant I’m sure it’s going to fling me off—then a massive fist smashes into the thing’s head, knocking it to the side.
 

The cat hisses mewls as we crash to the floor.
 

I dig at its eyes and nose with my claws, then Sorry’s holding the panther by the neck and smashing its tender nose with his meaty fist. The cat screeches and mewls and shakes it head as Sorry beats the living shit out of it and I tell you what, this isn’t the first time I’m thankful I got a brother like Sorry watching my back.
 

There’s a blinding explosion and the acrid odor of gunpowder as Nash empties his Glock point-blank into the animal’s side. The cat screeches and flings Sorry off, then scampers a few feet away, bleeding and limping badly.
 

I stagger to my feet and face down the animal that was once Lonny.
 

The cat looks at me, opens its mouth and roars, but it sounds less sure of itself.
 

I widen my stance, clench my fists, stare the cat down and roar back.

The panther flinches. Just a little.
 

But it might be enough.
 

I pick my Glock up off the floor and unload into the wall just above the cat’s head. Pop-pop-pop. He flinches, paces in a half circle.

“Fuck off now, Lonny,” I say, more to myself than the panther. “Fuck off so I don’t have to kill you.”

The panther’s bleeding bad. The sight of all that black blood spread across the room should have me mad with hunger and bloodlust. But it doesn’t. Not this time. And as I stand there staring down my old friend I wonder: is this weakness? Is this hesitation? And then, way back in my mind, the seed of doubt I’ve been trying to ignore gets larger. More insistent. Forms into a complete thought. And that thought is:
you’re too weak to be a Pureblood alpha.

The Glock shakes in my unsteady hand. Sweat streams down my face as I scream, “Fuck off now Lonny! Get out of here! Go!” I wave my arms in the air, trying to frighten him off like he’s a little house cat and not a black blooded Stricken, my ancient rival and prey.

The cat takes a smooth sideways half-step. Wavers. Stares at me. He’s waiting for me to pounce. So is my crew.

The room’s quiet except for a slight scratching sound coming from within the vinyl body bags.

“Finish him, Prez,” Nash growls.

Fuck you
, I think, but what I say is: “Give him a chance, Nash. This isn’t his fault. It doesn’t have to be like that.”

“It does, brother,” Sorry says, his voice quiet and deadly. “That’s exactly how it has to be.”
 

The panther’s still bulking up. Biding his time until he’s whole. And worse, he’s healing. Right before my eyes. Faster than I thought possible the cat’s bullet wounds are closing up. His hind legs are growing thick with muscle, and the fucker just seems to get bigger—

 
My crew steps beside me. Mia hisses, her snake arms slithering across the floor toward the panther.
 

The cat roars again, but it looks uncertain.
 

“I’m fucking sorry about this, Lonny,” Sorry says. “I mean I really am. You have to believe me.”

The cat paces back and forth in the corner of the apartment as we close in. It’s three to one.
 

Then the cat looks at me. Its face is a ragged and bloody mess but its eye has already healed over. It’s mad with pain and fear and the scent of our blood, but I see something else in its eyes.
 

Something I recognize.
 

The cat wants freedom. That’s all. Just freedom to roam.

“Stand down,” I say to my crew.

“What?” Nash says, his voice a hideous barking shout. “What do you mean—”

“I said stand down.”

The panther hisses and scratches at the wooden floorboards.

“We can’t do that, bro,” Sorry says, stepping forward, his jaw lengthening as he summons his wolf. “This is natural law. Pureblood over Stricken. Always and forever.”

“I said stand the fuck down!” I scream, gripping my brother’s shoulder. “Let him go! This isn’t on him. It’s on me.”

“No Stricken deserves mercy, Prez,” Nash says. “If Lonny could talk he’d beg you to kill him for what he’s become. You know it’s true.”

“Yeah?” I say, holstering my Glock. “Says
you
?”

Sorry and Nash share a look that makes my blood cool, but they both keep their mouths shut. For now.
 

They don’t like how I lead? Well fuck them. The upstart assholes. I’ve got more pressing matters—
 

The panther fakes a charge, looses a quick, high-pitched shriek, steps left and leaps for the window.
 

There’s a shattering crash and then it’s gone as fast as a bad dream.
 

I race over and peer down the street. We’re on the third floor, nearly thirty feet up. The rain’s driving down and a low mist has settled between the shithole buildings.
 

My heart’s pounding in my ears.
 

I think I fucked up. I think I fucked up bad.
 

“Vanished,” Sorry says, shaking his head as he stands beside me.

Freed
, I think.

I inch away from my brother, taking him out of my blind spot. He flashes me an odd glance.
 

Yeah. I fucked up.
 

“Christ in shit,” Mia says, walking to me. “The kitty scratched you good.”

My breathing slows, and as I relax the pain of my wounds hits me. I’ve got a set of four deep scratches straight across the tatty on my chest. It’s my favorite tat, a spruce forest blanketed in snow lit by a full moon. Full moons don’t mean shit to Purebloods but it’s a pretty story.
 

“I’m having one fuck of a bad week,” I say to no one in particular. “Anyone else think it’s time for a win?”

“I think you did the right thing,” Mia says, loud enough for Nash and Sorry to hear.

“Yeah? I’m glad someone does.”

There’s a long silence. Everyone’s thinking about what just happened. Letting a Stricken live is one of those things a Pureblood alpha just does not do. Yet I did it. I acted on instinct, and I won’t stand around second-guessing myself now.
 

“So, Prez,” Nash says, smacking me on the back, “Lesson learned. Do not eat infant Stricken hearts spawned from the bellies of murdered Skin women.”

Sorry chuckles, but while I appreciate Nash trying to lighten the mood with his twisted humor I can’t find a reason to laugh. The Stricken are our only source of food. If the Stricken have found a way to breed, and if we can’t consume this new generation, or worse, if this new generation can feed on us—

“We’re fucked,” Mia says softly. She can’t read my mind, but she knows me well enough to know what the look on my face means. “What’s happening, Aaron? What’s going on?”
 

“Fuck if I know,” I say, looking at the bodies lined up on the floor and feeling like I’m walking across a razor edge. “But I wish I did.”