Pawn Among Wolves Ch 15B

The night turned inky and the wind died, leaving an intense, echoing stillness. Barely discernable as a strip of deeper blackness between the dark trees, a straight road shone faintly, the hard surface reflecting the scarce starlight. The drone of a distant car had been getting steadily louder, and now a set of headlights topped a slight rise, blazing fire into the still night and highlighting a figure trotting slowly along the edge of the asphalt. The car roared swiftly closer and ruffled his fur as it zipped past.

A heavy screech of tyres biting the hard surface made Riley's drooping ears wince, but he kept his nose close to the ground and limped doggedly on, barely noticing the subsequent heavy slam of a door, or footsteps approaching, until a soft drawl said, "Hello old fellah. You're out late. Looks like you're going somewhere, are you lost? Let me just take a look at your collar."

The woman almost managed to get a hand on his ruff. He was so tired, his dodge was slow and awkward, and he winced as he landed hard on his cut paw when he swerved around her and trotted on, slightly faster. He could hear her panting as she tried to catch up, and increased his pace a bit more, tuning her out as he sunk back into his tired old lope. He had a job to do.

The car screeched and roared past him again, slewing to a halt across his path as the woman jumped out for a second time. Riley huffed in frustration, and winced his way over the spikey stones at the road edge, lumbering across the ditch into the orchard of knotted old trees while soft, cajoling words followed him, calling him back. He felt awkward, slightly ashamed, ignoring the human, but he had to. And some of them were so

insistent

.

The tired old hound swayed in the darkness under the fruit trees, wanting to fold and sleep. He was so hungry. A burning ache seared his joints, and his foot throbbed. He had been too tired to pay proper attention for a long time now, so the edge of his pad had been cut when it had landed on a sharp stone. He had licked it clean but was leaving a patchy trail behind him, a faint line of blood dots disappearing into the distance back down the road. Riley's brain was fuddled with pain and exhaustion and hunger, but he knew what he was doing.

Following the trail.

Guilt was partially what pulled him along. Riley wasn't a fighter, he never had been much of one and now he was too old, too stiff. Those wolves had been so big. So many. And while the old beagle had circled the horde of them savaging at the Alpha, trying to see an opening, he had stumbled over the scent trail. The same strange car scent as before, that the Alpha had told him to follow, from home. The urgency of the command had still echoed in his head:

follow it

. The old beagle had hesitated, watching the fight that he couldn't hope to win. And had turned to track along the scent. Hoping this was right. He was still tracking. Hoping.

His tired brain couldn't remember properly now, through the weariness, but he thought he recalled, not long ago, hearing that strong voice in his head again. Telling him to look at the white shiny board on the metal post by the roadside, coaxing him to focus fuzzy eyes on the black squiggles crossing the surface. The voice had hurt his head so much, the pain making him a little dizzy. Had he heard it?

Across the ditch, a car door clunked, and the engine purred away into the darkness. The woman had gone. The old beagle, trembling, limped painfully back across the ditch and resumed his tired lope along the faint, rubbery, chilling scent.

An hour later, Riley barely heard the next car, head drooping between his shoulders in weariness as he limped doggedly on. Then he blinked, heart aching on a sudden thud as he dodged the door opening just ahead of his nose, whining at the pain in his paw.

He stopped and blinked again, nostrils twitching at the scent of the person sliding out of the car: the boy who lived next door. He smelt funny, even more strongly wolf than earlier, but it was Adam alright.

Then the hound's haunches hit the asphalt, hind legs collapsing as the scent of the driver striding around the rear of the car washed over him. The Alpha was so much

stronger

. And

furious

. Riley's limbs were melting under him in fear, and he trembled, head dropping instinctively to rest on his throbbing forepaws as he peered up at the looming figure approaching, the tip of his tail supplicating. He had meant to do right. But the Alpha was so

angry

.

The hand caressing over his head reassured him, then he gulped half a yelp as he was scooped abruptly into strong arms just before the wolf leapt over the roadside ditch holding him, and strode off across the stubbly field.

Riley's fur was standing on end, being carried by this volcano of explosive feeling. But he was soothed by the hand still expertly fondling his ears: the Alpha was not angry with

him

.

Slowly through the fog of exhaustion in his brain Riley recognised - the Alpha was

proud

of him. While Adam pumped in water, the powerful wolf gently, swiftly washed his paw in a little trough at the side of the orchard, then licked it healed himself-

properly

healed. Together with licking over his other clean pads, so that they buzzed and tingled fire, but stopped aching. Then Adam and the blazing Alpha shared out a delicious supper of warm pork chops from a paper bag, all three of them standing around gnawing together. Riley's tail was waving exuberantly as he devoured his share of the delicious feast.

Sharing meat with an Alpha.

Shortly afterward, the old hound sat happily on the passenger seat, tired brain clouded with fuzz, and flopped against the upholstery as the pair of two-leggeds spoke to each outside the open car door. Mac crouched down abruptly, lifting the beagle's head to look into his eyes, but Riley winced and looked away. It

hurt

. He was too

tired

. Then he whined apologetically as the Alpha surged back to his feet and said, "Are you sure?" in a brittle voice to Adam while he carefully closed the door.

The boy pressed a palm to his own head, crushing flat the grimy once-white cap that was now tied to his scalp with a dark ribbon. The boy's voice was harsh, vehement as he vowed, "Yes."

The wolf grunted and handed him the car keys and his phone, turning slightly to flicker a burning glance back down the road in the direction from which they had come. "The travel sickness will be horrible once the drug wears off - try and get as far as you can before you have to abandon the car, but don't get arrested."

Adam grunted, and strode impatiently around to the driver's side. The Warlord half-growled, and Adam jerked to a halt and looked back across the roof of the car, gaze caught and held by the burning brightness of the Alpha's. Mac seared a deep, searching, almost yearning look into the werewolf's eyes for a long moment, before he nodded, growling again, "Keep in touch." There was a flash of white fur, and in seconds the graceful wolf vanished in among the trees.

Riley was staring at the spot where the Alpha had disappeared, heart aching. Then he felt familiar fingers stroking between his ears, and stopped whining. "Good boy," Adam whispered hesitantly while the driver's door clunked shut behind him. "It's just you and me on this hunt now - Mac has to lead the more direct attack. But one way or another, we'll find Gem."

***

That had been far too close

, Mac thought as he limped into the Marshmont dining hall the following afternoon.

The vast chamber took up almost the entire third floor of the cliff fortress, flanked to the west by a series of large kitchens, and to the east by a smaller, private dining room. A long, wide corridor running along the windowless north side connected all the rooms to the central stairway, and the doors in the north wall of the corridor opened only onto a series of store-rooms and butchering rooms.

The long bank of tall windows opposite the dining room doors flooded the space with warm afternoon light. A vast, detailed map of the broad valley and surrounding mountains covered almost the entire length of the long wall opposite the windows, behind the equally long, heavy wooden tables. The sparse melee of besieged Marsh wolves were chattering in relief as they swarmed in toward the succulent food, relating in hushed, excited murmurs the staggering series of events which had enabled them to repel the night attack, an attack that had commenced only minutes after the Mackeld had parachuted in.

Mac was trembling with fatigue after his second night of battle without rest, covered in sweat and healing wounds, both those from this new fight, and those which had not yet fully healed from the battle down at O'Connell. He collapsed onto one of the benches, scowling at his excruciating piquant, and ignoring the empty winged seat at the head of the top table to which Karim Marsh was beckoning him. Jon Marsh's seat. The Marsh wolf heeded the warning look he received and settled with a grimace on a bench to the right of the empty seat, next to Mac's brother-in-law Will Bancroft.

Mac's brain was seething, his heart keening. He hadn't managed to fight through to Jian-Xi Tzo

. He still didn't know where she was

. Warlord Tzo had arrived with a mass of new forces at dawn to augment the attack here at Marshmont, leading an all-out assault to take the fortress.

What the hell was the Tzo himself doing

here

?

The Tzo pack had flown in with their remaining air transport. Mac shuddered at the thought of the position the Aster would have been in if his mate hadn't invented her travel drug. They would have had no chance of keeping up with their enemies.

His Gemma.

Wincing, Mac's eyes lit with fury and he reached for the overpoweringly enticing meats piled in the dishes before him with a hand trembling with fatigue and anger. As soon as he had refuelled he would sortie out and beat her whereabouts out of the fucking Tzo himself, if necessary.

Mac tore off a mouthful with no table manners whatsoever, chewed ferociously, and was already biting off a second piece when he noticed the figure of Hakan hovering hesitantly in the far doorway of the dining hall, beyond the packed tables of hungrily wolfing Marsh. The White second was shivering lightly as the scents caressed his nostrils, his battle-battered packmates peering past him longingly, foreheads creased with their own piquant headaches.

Ah.

Damn

, thought Mac.

The Alpha shook his pounding head, dragging his mind out of his brooding fury, irritated with himself for not realising, remembering. He rose quickly back to his feet, swaying slightly as his stomach

howled

for more, clenching his claws into the wooden tabletop.

"Karim Marsh," he called across the long tables, voice thundering above the noise, and the gorging warriors in the hall all suddenly froze, falling silent, heads turning to the formidable Warlord.

"May my Whites share your kill?" asked Mac formally.

A sense of relief washed through the hall, and Karim spun to face the wolves packed just outside the Western doorway. The heartfelt howl of his fria welcoming the guests was echoed by a wave of slightly shamefaced laughter throughout the vast chamber, and the Marsh wolves quickly rose to shuffle seats and benches sideways to make room for their new allies, calling them in, beckoning them to the free places.

The accidental informality was actually beneficial, Mac thought to himself as he sat down again, watching the mingling packs. The Whites were dotted everywhere in and among the Marsh, and the warriors of both packs were beginning to swap stories eagerly. The Marsh could not make the slightly hesitant Whites more welcome: their rescuers, who had crashed through the Tzo lines, enabling the Aster wolves together to expel the Tzo warriors who had broken through, and then together Marsh and Whites had sealed the breech in the Western buttress. Even the wariest of the Whites, unaccustomed to other packs, were slowly relaxing under the delighted shower of goodwill.

The White warriors must be as starving as he, Mac rebuked himself silently. They had had no time to stop and eat, since he had called them urgently just after dawn, ordering Hakan to select fifty elite warriors to hijack a truck, and just

get here

. Fifty - well, fifty-two, had used up all that Ada had had of the travel drug - and it had been lucky that Will had still been with them, since none of the Whites could drive. The other two Mac had sent elsewhere.

You did well to remember the etiquette

, the Alpha conveyed silently to Hakan.

I have been guest-free here for so long, I had forgotten. My apologies

.

As his eyes met those of his White second down the long room, Mac briefly touched his fingertips together in the sign of contrition. He felt the little rumble of feeling from the watching Marsh who saw the exchange between wolf and Warlord.

Hakan smiled a lopsided smile and flicked his fingers to the Warlord in the old sign of fealty, lowering himself with a wince into the seat that Karim had pulled forward for him, and accepting a haunch from the proffered bowl.

I would not shame my Alpha

, he conveyed smoothly, a hint of amusement buried in the tone.

Mac flickered a burning look at him, then dropped his eyes and stared at the meat on his plate, waiting for each of his Whites to take at least two mouthfuls before he allowed himself to bite back into it: a self-imposed rebuke.

He waited.

Then he looked up, distracted by the almost pained scent of frustration in the room. Every single wolf was staring at him, waiting for

him

to resume eating.

Damn protocol.

"Eat!" he commanded them. Some reached hesitantly for their food, but then looked at the unmoving figures of Karim, Hakan and Will, and stopped short. Mac sighed, and explained impatiently, "I ate before my pack had food. An Alpha should know better. So I will wait until you are all eating before continuing," he announced, a note of steel in his voice, meeting Hakan's eyes again.

The roomful of hungry wolves still waited in silence while the White second answered softly for them, "You are our Alpha, our Warlord. We wait for you to eat first."

Hakan was still keeping his face perfectly straight, but Mac wasn't fooled.

"You have spent much of your recent days with my mate," the Alpha acknowledged softly, while his eyes sparkled with increasing danger. "But do you really wish to challenge me as she does?"

The words

especially now

hovered unspoken in the air. Hakan shivered.

"Eat," Mac finished softly.

Hakan reeled backward where he sat, and sighed as he obediently picked up his joint. "She says I spend too much time with

you

," he muttered to it, and took a bite.

Mac closed his eyes to prevent his glare from burning the wolf, then felt his heart jolt as Karim's iPhone, set on the table beside him, buzzed with an incoming call. Leaping to his feet, he snatched up the handset and conveyed fiercely to the March second:

Bring me that road map

.

Two minutes later he was leaning over a small chest under one of the windows, tracing a pen along the large scale map while talking urgently in a low voice on a phone. He was following a line of dotted red circles which traced a slow, short pathway through a mishmash of dense roads.

His voice was brittle, "You can't work it out - which was the last of them?"

"No," Adam's voice was exhausted, wretched. "We've tried them both, but the trails seem to be fading in the rain, Riley's - he's so miserable about this, he managed for so

long

." Mac could hear the tears in the young voice.

Not their fault

. "You need to find shelter - you're in a small town, there must be a hotel that'll take dogs. Get some food. Rest," the Alpha ordered quietly. His brain was expanding in urgent need, searching for possibilities. "And yes, the rain is a setback, but only a setback. You must be close - two sets of Argen tyre-tracks means you are converging on the goal.

You will be close

."

"But we've lost her trail," Adam whined in angry misery. "We can't smell either of them any more - I couldn't reliably anyway, but now not even

Riley

can."

The boy was still too human to be able to differentiate human vehicles from wolf. Realisation flared in Mac's mind, and his brain cleared sharply. A small, feral smile lit his lips.

"Don't worry about that, Adam," he reassured the young werewolf. "You may not yet have the nose to smell the car, but unlike us, you

are

able to smell scent-masked wolves. You are a werewolf, still partially human. And between you and Riley, you have narrowed down the search area immensely."

His eyes ranged over the expanse of forested mountains to the east of Adam's marked trail: it was a large area, but a thorough search would find her captors.

"All wolves have to hunt the wilds around where they are based - you will find a trail of those wolves, scent-masked or not, if you search methodically," Mac explained.

He was pleased to hear the reviving enthusiasm in the young voice, while Adam burst out eagerly, "I'll go and look now - I'll find something. I'll hunt everywhere."

"No - go and get some rest, first, both of you. Eat. They will not be hunting in the rain," returned Mac. "You will be more alert, faster."

He heard a sigh of acknowledgment.

"And I have sent two of my best trackers to join you," Mac continued. "Let me know where you find lodging and they will come and meet you. They will probably not be able to scent the wolves, but they will be able to sight track, and recruit and hunt with stray dogs from the local area. You will have to direct them all in what to do, what to sniff for."

And the werewolf would no longer be alone.

Mac's skin was shuddering at the knowledge of the danger he had let loose, the laws he had broken by setting the werewolf and the hound to hunt alone. Yet - to bring the boy here, to a fight he hadn't the skill to fight, and so imprison him with no hope of atonement - no, that would not have been

looking after him

.

Ada was too slender to overpower Adam if he lost control, but she could outmatch him with skill. And between them, she and Penny should be able to keep him in check, if necessary, until Nils got there with the others.

"What about Riley?" the young werewolf interrupted Mac's thoughts.

All that Adam heard in reply was a heavy, pained grunt, and the thud of the phone hitting the wooden floor as a distorted howl echoed through the handset, followed by a thunder of scraping benches and pounding footfalls and yells.

"The terrace!" Adam heard the ringing challenge of the Alpha's bellow above the cacophony. "Karim - hold the Eye!"

***

Two days later, Bethan drove slowly into a small town slumbering in a brief patch of midday sun. She blinked around at the small signs of peaceful urban normality, feeling oddly displaced, unreal. Angry. Hunched low in the seat beside her was the unhealthily skinny figure of Ada. They hadn't said an unnecessary word for over a day, each holding to their own silence.

Bethan still couldn't believe that she had let Mac talk her into this trip, it was such an infuriating waste of time. She and Kate had answered his call to go with Nils Fealden to help Adam, Penny, and Ada hunt for Gemma as soon as he had asked, no question. But almost immediately after they had arrived at the damp patch of forest and met the others, Mac had - well,

ordered

Bethan and Ada to divert on this trip.