With nothing but the light of their fire to guide us, Micah and I walked quietly through the snow. They had great noses and ears and would likely know we were coming long before we wanted them to. It was possible to sneak up on a Werewolf but not in our current conditions. The wind didn’t favor us. It would bring our scent straight to them. Unless there was something going on we didn’t know about, they weren’t going to be particularly distracted.
A cry carried on the night air, and it took me a second to recognize it as a woman’s. Micah and I looked at each other before we abandoned any pretense of stealth and ran. It wasn’t a howl. This late at night, even without the Full Moon, the Werewolves would howl. That was a human, and she needed help
We reached the fire just in time to see a woman trying to fend off three Werewolves while wielding a stick. What was she even doing there? She didn’t have a coat, and her shoes weren’t made for snow. She wore a nightgown.
“Give my brother back, you beasts,” she hollered, striking at them with her stick.
That was when I saw the kid. Not dressed for the elements, he stood in a sack like device, and it probably protected him pretty well from the snow. The fire the Wolves build was also keeping him warm. Still, the boy cried and shivered. He couldn’t have been more than two. “Help. Wolfies.”
The biggest of the filthy beasts laughed. “Our Alpha’s mate hungers for children.” They were so unconcerned with our presence they hadn’t even shifted.
Huh.
We weren’t near Genesis anymore. Maybe these asshats didn’t know they should be afraid of us. Maybe they’d never encountered Warriors before.
Well, I’d wanted to have a good time. This could turn out to be better than what I imagined other people’s birthdays were like. Not that I knew when mine was.
My machete wouldn’t fail me. Micah would use his without hesitation as well. Keith had taught us how to fight. We were good at it. In Genesis, we’d been like a well-oiled machine. We got the job done.
I swung and took the head off the Wolf right in front of me. The moment slowed and seemed to elongate. In the split second before my blade connected with his throat, with his gaze fixed on my machete, his eyes widened with realization of what was about to happen. Indecision held him rigid. Run? Shift? Run and Shift? Shift and Fight? Too bad he’d never complete the thought.
Micah dispatched his guy with equal swiftness.
The third Werewolf had time to witness both slaughters. He shifted, which was unfortunate. They were much easier to kill not in wolf form. I ducked when he swiped at me and ran behind him when he lunged at Micah. As prepared as we were, a giant Werewolf was still a thing of beauty in its ability to kill. One swipe of his claw and he could cut us in half.
I’d seen it too many times.
I jumped on top of him. The Wolf actually oomphed before the two of us started to wrestle in the snow. I was enormously grateful I’d put on my better socks to manage the snow.
Our struggle for control didn’t last long. With a swish, Micah took off its head.
I had a headless, dead Werewolf on top of my beaten up body. For a second, I just let myself lie in the snow and breathe, grateful I still could. If there had been even one more Wolf, we’d have been dead. End of story. Goodnight world.
“Dead?” Micah stared down at me.
“You wish.” I pushed the Wolf off then climbed to my feet. Every one of my joints screamed that I had to be more than twenty years old. Oh, who was I kidding? Twenty was old in our world. Only in my fake memories were twenty-year-olds young and carefree.
I scanned the area around the fire to make sure we had no others coming after us. The woman and her brother shivered against a tree. After a second of study, I could make her out pretty well thanks to the fire. She looked our age. That would be my guess, although to know for certain in the dark, even with the red embers glowing, was hard. She had long, blond hair that fell past her shoulder. Her face was lean with high cheekbones and a pert nose that turned upward at the end just a little bit. I wasn’t short at six feet tall, and she was almost my height. She was thin but looked strong, which she’d have to be to survive out here. Her brother was tiny, and she held him to her fiercely.
How the Werewolves got him was a question I wasn’t sure I’d get an answer to. Just because we all fought the Werewolves didn’t make us friends, just strangers with death wishes.
“Hello,” Micah called out. He was the perfect person to address her. Girls loved Micah and tended to end up hating me.
She nodded, her gaze traveling from Micah to me to Micah again. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” I answered. The night was cold, the Werewolves dead, and I wanted to go back to the stupid brown house before my aching body really started to throb. “I’m Deacon. This is Micah.”
She nodded again, looking at the ground. “I’m Lydia. This is Charlie. He’s terrified or he’d say thank you.”
“Well, he’s welcome, too,” Micah said, grinning at her. I waited for the swoon. They all swooned for Micah. We all had a moment of silence before Micah spoke again. “What happened?”
She sucked in their breath. “They took him. Mama’s sick. Daddy’s missing. I couldn’t let him go. Wouldn’t. I know it’s stupid. Once they have someone, you don’t get them back. But…” Her voice shook, and she closed her mouth. I nodded at her, hoping she’d understand that I got how hard this was. It sucked to be put on the spot. “I don’t intend to lose anyone else to them. It’s so hard.”
“You’ve lost others?” I stepped toward her, wanting to know if her eyes were blue or green in the firelight. They were blue and huge. Fuck me, they were beautiful.
“Hasn’t everyone? That’s what Werewolves do. They pick and pick and pick. You never know why or who. And then it’s over.”
Crickets sounded in the night air. Shouldn’t they be dead? It was winter. Didn’t everything die in the cold? “Wherever you’re from, the Werewolves hurt you guys regularly?”
Why wasn’t Micah weighing in on this? Had he lost his voice?
Lydia clutched Charlie tighter. “Of course.”
“Well, not any longer.” What the hell was I saying? It was like I lost all control of my mouth. “We can help.”
Micah turned to look at me straight on. Maybe he’d refute me, get me out of whatever misfire in my brain had me giving Lydia promises I had no business making. Instead, he lifted his eyebrows. “Sure. We can help. Why the hell not?”
Shit. “Look, Lydia—”
“How did you do it?” She pointed at my machete on the ground. “I mean, those tools surely helped. But you leaped on it. That was the bravest thing I’ve ever seen. Can you teach me? Others? I mean, you made it look like it was possible to fight them. You must have done this before.”
Micah slapped my shoulder. “That’s our Deacon. The bravest guy you’ll ever know. How far is your camp from here?”
“Camp?” She blinked then pointed west. “My town is a distance that way.” We would have run into them in the morning. “You’d be more than welcome. Generally, the elders don’t take to strangers, but the Werewolves are getting worse and worse. There’s hundreds of them it seems. You saved Charlie.” Why was she looking at me and not Micah? “They’ll be so glad to have you. And honestly, if you don’t come, they’ll never believe me about what happened here tonight. You did do it. You killed those beasts.”
We had.
Hundreds of them? Lydia grinned, and I smiled back. Maybe I had a concussion… women didn’t smile at me. Hell, most women didn’t even notice I was there—especially when Micah was present.
Yep. Had to be a concussion.
Two
I ended up giving Lydia my coat. The longer we walked, the more seeing her in that nightgown trudging through the snow aggravated me. I didn’t have anything to punch. So I took off my coat and wrapped it around both Lydia and Charlie. They were going to get sick otherwise. A little cold wasn’t going to affect my immune system. Y
ears cooped up with so many others at the Vamp facility had exposed me to the worst of everything.
I hardly ever got sick, which was good because the Vampires killed people who grew too ill. No sense in endangering their food supply. We had basically been cattle. I forced the thought away. My memories haunted me a lot lately. Without Genesis to annoy and distract me, I had way too many moments to remember my past.
Lydia’s hips swayed in a very distracting way—first in that nightgown and now in my coat, which was thicker but somehow sexier at the same time. How did she get her body to move like that while she carried Charlie? Micah had gone back to his being quiet thing, and the whole deal with the three of us clomping along in the snow was starting to feel awkward. I didn’t do that kind of discomfort very well.
“Do you want to give me the kid?”
Lydia side-eyed me. “Excuse me?”
“Hand me the kid? He must be a lot to carry for you. I can do it. I’m stronger.”
Micah smirked and covered his mouth. What the hell was funny? Lydia looked down then at me. “Okay, thank you for the kind offer.”
She slipped Charlie onto my shoulder then tried to give me the jacket back as well. “You keep it.’
“You don’t have one, and now you have my brother, too.”
I shrugged. What was confusing about this? “I got it. Keep the coat.”
“You better keep the coat, Lydia. He’ll just get testy. And besides it looks better on you.”
I waited for her to blush. They all did when Micah flirted. They started to giggle and finally, outright laugh. Then he had them. Lydia didn’t blush. She looked up at the sky instead. “I’m afraid we’re going to have a lot more snow before this winter leaves us. I hate the snow.”
“Me too.” Of course, she didn’t need me to agree. I’d never mastered small talk. I didn’t get it. You said stuff or you didn’t.
Holding Charlie was certainly warming me up. The kid was like a mini heater. He squirmed, his head coming down more squarely on my shoulder. I rubbed his back. I was good with kids, always had been.
“So you were the only person in the whole town or wherever you’re from who could come traipsing out after Charlie? You don’t even have a coat.”
“I was asleep when he was taken. I woke, and I just ran. I didn’t even think. I mean, I know I can’t beat the Wolves. No one can. And with all the men missing…”
Micah turned to her. “Come again?”
“All of the men have been missing for a month. They’re gone.”
I understood two things at once. Sometimes insight came to me like that. Lydia was keeping secrets. That was fine. She was entitled to them. I didn’t feel so much like giving up mine. But also, she needed help. Since we were here, Micah and I might as well see she got some.
“The Werewolves took all the men?” I couldn’t even imagine that scene.
She shook her head. “We don’t know what happened. They were there, and then they were gone. Usually when the Werewolves come, it’s a giant mess. The monsters don’t care what kind of scene they make to get what they want. My house is an incredible jumble right now. Everything was thrown everywhere.”
Micah ran a hand through his black hair. “And there’s no chance they all simply took off?”
“What kind of men would do that?” Her tone was rough. She wasn’t going to believe less of her people, and I appreciated that in whatever world she lived in, men didn’t run off and leave their women to survive.
I wasn’t going to tell her that I’d known lots of men who would leave their families. Why soften her resolve? She had to get through the nights. “How old were the youngest men they took? What about the elderly?”
I wasn’t sure who the they in this scenario was, but I’d go with they for now. Why not?
Lydia smiled at me, and suddenly, I felt like I grew two inches. “I’ll never be able to thank you enough.” Her cheeks turned red and in the sun that was rising I could see the color well. Was she blushing? Why was she doing that? And she’d never answered my question. With her gaze down, she spoke again. “The youngest was sixteen, the oldest sixty-two. Our oldest villager.”
That was an impressive age to reach. I sighed. This whole bit didn’t make any sense, so we’d have to just see what the deal was when we reached the town. Wherever that turned out to be. How long had she chased the Wolves, and why had they let her?
Probably, they figured they’d just eat her. It was likely very amusing to them that some human woman thought she could stop them.
Micah sucked in his breath. “Deacon. It’s an actual town. With houses. Houses that aren’t empty, houses people live in.” He stopped moving altogether and just stared. I followed his gaze. He was right. There were rows and rows of small cottage-looking houses with gray smoke coming out of the chimneys. A stone wall marked the boundaries of the first town I’d seen outside of the tent city that was Genesis, and giant trees surrounded it on all sides. Currently, everything was bathed in white. In winter, that was the shade of death. I didn’t want that for these people I still had yet to meet. There was life here. I took a deep breath. This was what I was looking for. Outside of Genesis, there was life. Not just touches. But a group of people…
I blinked. So the hell what? I didn’t know these people. Lydia was… nice… and Charlie smelled like fresh air and powder.
“Hey.” I caught Lydia’s attention. “That thing you did with the stick. Fighting back the Werewolf? That was the single bravest thing I’ve ever seen. I wanted you to know.”
Was it just me or did Lydia seem to glow? She nodded once. “That thing you did? Jumping on the Werewolf? That was the single bravest thing I’ve ever seen.”
“It was nothing.”
Micah rolled his eyes. “He is brave. Even if he doesn’t know it.”
I felt the Werewolf alarm move through me like an assault. One second, nothing, then the next it was all over me. I almost doubled over from the pain, but I had Charlie, and he couldn’t be hurt. I shoved his sleeping form at his sister. I wished I could be gentler, but time was of the essence. Micah darted to the side, both of us freeing our machetes from where they were strapped to our backs.
“Deacon,” Micah shouted at me. “At least five.”
“Maybe more,” I replied.
I put myself in front of Lydia, pushing her slightly backward until she was up against a gray stone wall. If she needed to run, she could go left or right but nothing would come at her straight on. Not while I lived and breathed.
A Werewolf jumped out of a tree. He was in his full Wolf form. I rolled my eyes. “Look at you. Big, tough dog. Come to play with me?”
It growled and lunged. So did I. I sliced off its head, although it took me two good swings to sever the spinal cord. I hoped it hurt the fucker. I hoped he suffered. I jolted to the left, missing a clawing. Lydia cried out.
“Deacon, watch yourself.”
I smiled at her. “I’m hard to kill.”
“No.” Her face was serious. “You’re not.” Charlie cried, and she pulled him closer.
Over and over, Micah and I fought back the Werewolves until they were gone. At the end, Micah and I stood together, heads down, panting.
“You beat me in this one.” Micah chuckled. “You got the three, I only took two.”
“Yeah.” He was right but that was beside the point. “Your Werewolf was harder.”
Lydia came up behind me, wrapping her free arm around me. “You’re okay. I was so scared. Not for myself. But for you.”
“I—” Before I even knew what I was doing, I hugged her back. “I’m fine.”
Micah snickered, raising one arm in the air. “I’m good, too.”
We’d drawn a crowd, and I hadn’t even realized it. I let go of Lydia, who was apparently a hugger. I turned toward the new arrivals. A group of women and young children gaped at us, twittering to themselves quietly, until a loud shriek sounded.
“Lydia,” a woman shouted. “Lydia.” The way
the woman said Lydia’s name sounded off to my ears. She said it like it wasn’t just Lydia she was saying but like it broke up into more than three syllables. Ly-Di-ee-Ah.
Charlie and Lydia were then pulled into the embrace of an older, frail looking woman who shook while she held them. “I thought you were dead. I thought you were both dead.” She cried. Lydia cried. Charlie cried. It was a big tear fest.
I stepped back until I was shoulder-to-shoulder with Micah. I had parents, and despite the odds, they’d somehow survived our time with the Vamps. They loved each other, and they clearly loved my sister and me, or at least at one time they had. Now it wasn’t so clear. But no one held me like that. No one ever had.
That was what it looked like to be truly loved. I pulled my gaze away. I didn’t know these people, probably never would. I would never forget the sight of it for the rest of my life.
“Mama, everyone,” Lydia called out, “I would be dead. Charlie would be dead. But these two men—Deacon and Micah—they’re such heroes. They killed Werewolves. You just saw. They did it before, too. And Deacon threw his body on a Werewolf, wrestled it to the ground. They’ll save us all.”
Now, wait a second. I had not promised to save anyone. Had I? With this woman, I seemed to be saying all kinds of things. Micah elbowed me, his voice low. “How’s it feel to be such a hero, Deacon?”
“Eat it, Micah.” I rolled my eyes. “Lydia…”
I never got to finish that sentence. The crowd of women cheered. I could hardly identify one face from the next before they were pulling us into the center of town and into a home.
“Ah, ladies—” I didn’t really like being touched all that much. Lydia’s hug aside, I preferred strangers keep their hands to themselves. We had to set down our blood soaked machetes outside before we went in, which was awkward. We washed our hands, and then we were all but shoved into chairs where a bowl of soup was placed before each of us.
“Just go with it, man.” Micah winked at me. “Women like to fuss. Let them fuss.”