Revenge Page 2

  “Don’t let all that tightness, control just come back in an instant and rule you again. I felt you, when you were with me. Like a submission, like you knew, it was okay to be with me, in that sense.”

  He remains quiet and looking at me, his eyes searching mine out. A little smile plays across his face.

  “You’re a clever one, aren’t you?”

  “Well, I always figured you’d had enough of bimbos.” We both share a little laugh and he looses his hold around me. Our skin is sticky as we put a little room between us.

  “Shape shift for me Paris.” My voice is husky and I’m not ashamed to say, I still feel horny and the idea of seeing my man, become his wolf, turns me on even more.

  He’s impressive in either form.

  He kisses me deeply and I hear the growl growing within him. His shape shift barely being held back. Truly amazing, I’ve never seen him so easily close to just not having that restraint. The sensual movement of his mouth with mine is again building in urgency. We’re not done here yet. I feel a movement between us and realize, Paris has a hand back on his cock, stroking it as we kiss.

  No, we’re nowhere close to done. This night out here, in the dark and quiet, requires more howling, more fur. Sex scented air and sweat covered leaves. It needs werewolves.

  The romance of our being there, the idea of love of expelling everything else out of our system, until there is just freedom in fur, unity in presence, love in our very beings. He breaks from me and gives me one last lingering look, before I scramble apart from him, so he can shape shift.

  Shape shifting for Paris, is far easier to bring on and do gracefully, than it is for me.

  Paris sits on his knees before me, looking at me the whole time, and as if on cue, the wind picks up and trees sway to let the moonlight dance down around.

  Light plays across Paris’s naked form and I watch his muscles ripple, tense and shimmer, and in the blink of an eye and a flash of fur there is a werewolf before me. Dark eyes, still look back at me. I crawl over to the large wolf.

  He’s about two and half times the size of a regular, wild wolf. But he’s still wolf all the same.

  Four paws, tail, ears that twitch as they adjust to their new surrounds. His nose snorts and sniffs as I move closer to him. I rub my face up against the soft fur of his powerful front leg, making the werewolf familiar with me.

  This is how werewolves greet one another when we’re in wolf form. It’s done to show respect in hierarchy, from a Beta to an Alpha wolf. It makes us not only Alpha and Beta wolves, or lovers, it reminds me, it keeps us together, no matter what form we take.

  I will be with him all night, if he chooses to hold this form, for that time, because the presence of the werewolf before me, is not only sensuality without need for formality. It is also security to me. It is so many things, and such a simple gesture.

  Its pack, and pack is everything. Even if both Paris and I are from different werewolf packs.

  Which is part of the problem we are escaping from, out here. Except that I remember that which I can’t escape. I lay down with Paris , and inhale the scent of the world around us. Night air, earth, the sapling bark of trees. Fur with almonds and traces of amber, the human base scent of him mingled in there, amongst the wolf. I curl against his underbelly and close my eyes.

  Just me and my wolf. The world around us, this night, is ours.

  4

  While everyone around me, my family, my siblings Aksel and Bodil, decided to fight Paris and let him know how poorly they think he’s handled the fall out of my attack at Gabby’s hands, I’d been left to sit and watch them tear at each other. Like that made sense.

  Werewolves fighting werewolves’ emotions. Nobody benefits from that pain. And then it came to me, what had to be done.

  I told my sister Bodil “I have a plan” and she listened. She seemed somewhat surprised by my plan after she heard it, like it never occurred to her, that I could think so strategically. Or that I’d be so willing to go through with it.

  It means, putting my relationship with Paris, to the test. Jeopardizing it, a great deal. To the point, my relationship might be over with him. Maybe it was a case of Bodil didn’t want me to have to. To think the way I have to put this plan into affect. But I’m a werewolf, my life was never going to be soft edges and low risk.

  So the day after I told her the plan, we put it into action. I went around to my Ex’s house, and asked him to come in on it. Conall Wakely and I do not have a smooth relationship history.

  I was with Conall for a long time, on and off, before we broke up and I left him for Paris. There’s been angry resentment between us ever since. But we do have a strength in the foundation of being from the same pack and that’s never been disputed between us.

  It’s always been an unbroken bond. I know above all else, that once Conall and I get through taking swipes at each other, we are on the same side and that he will do what I ask of him, if I call on him for help.

  Which is another reason my plan so shocked my sister Bodil. You see, she’s used to thinking like an Alpha werewolf, to being an individual and doing things for herself, by herself.

  I don’t have the luxury of her inherit abilities from being an Alpha. And yet, I’m going up against one. So really, there’s only ever been one way to even up the score on that front.

  To make me, an Alpha wolf. Obviously, that’s impossible.

  I mean, you’re either born a Beta or an Alpha werewolf. I’m a Beta wolf. It’s in the genetics and bloodline. You don’t get a say in it or an option to upgrade later on in life. Doesn’t work that way. You’re either born a natural werewolf, or you can get bitten by one and become another version of a wolf, a lycan.

  It is possible to become an Alpha lycan through a werewolf bite. I should know, since I’ve been with the only Alpha lycan in the Breukelen pack, Booker. But again, turning me into an Alpha lycan is impossible. Werewolf already, remember?

  So the question becomes, how do I turn into an Alpha werewolf, when I do not have the inherit abilities associated with Alpha wolves?

  I’m not as fast as them, I can’t do partial shape shifts, I can’t bring on other wolves shape shifts, I’m not nearly as strong as an Alpha. I’m not tough enough, or skilled enough to fight an Alpha werewolf.

  I can become an Alpha werewolf, through reputation. Not physical dominance.

  That is to say, I use my pack as my own personal army to take on Gabby Colton. A Beta wolf with a pack full of fighter wolves and Alpha warriors at her disposal to help her do her bidding, please, why has no one else thought of this?

  The Alpha’s in all their greatness, never thought to come up with a plan where I can save face, and have the advantage to level the playing field like this.

  There are no rules on this, no position I must take and adhere to in dealing with Gabby. She attacked me unprovoked. An attack like this, can be seen to be a declaration of war on my entire pack. Attack one, and it’s an attack against us all.

  So my inclination to get my pack’s assistance on this, rather than take it on a personal level, is highly justified. And yet I will make this very personal. Because I want Gabby to know I’ll never roll over and die for her. No matter how many times she comes at me.

  So it’s my plan to come at Gabby and to have me lead the charge. But I won’t be alone and she won’t be expecting that. She said as much when she left me bleeding out and alone on the cold concrete floor of a cage. She said Paris would come for her.

  I don’t know if she thinks he’ll come at her and take it easy because she’s of his pack, or if she expects him to get her and punish her accordingly. I just know she thinks it’s going to be Paris she’s dealing with, whenever she gets found to be dealt with.

  And that’s the thing- It won’t be Paris because I’m executing this plan now, as a Breukelen.

  The Manhattan Maen Pack, Gabby’s and Paris’s, haven’t been told we’re going after her ourselves. It could be a future sore point between
Paris and me, but right now, I don’t give a damn about that.

  I feel incensed every time I think of the attack. Every time. And that’s just not going to go away, if I don’t deal with Gabby. It’ll get worse, every time I end up seeing her smug face. And quite frankly, I think that’s more potentially explosive to my relationship with Paris than me holding out on him.

  Lunar week for werewolves, is when the moon goes through its phases, leading up to the full moon. It’s both a blessing and a curse, as it were. For a few varied reasons.

  All wolves, regardless of whether you are an Alpha, Beta or lycan, are affected by this.

  All sensations, emotions and feelings in our physiology are heightened more than normal.

  Heightened, means our abilities are stronger, faster, quicker, than normal.

  Heightened, means our sensations are tenfold more than normal. So if you’re normally horny, then when lunar week kicks off, you’re like a nymphomaniac with a problem.

  Heightened, means our sensations are tenfold more than normal. The bad ones too. So our pain factor, is increased. Where we already have a pain threshold that is outstandingly above average for humans, we are also prone to feeling the pain of injury during lunar week, twentyfold more than normal.

  When there’s an eclipse, we’re all fucked. Equally. Figuratively speaking.

  This week there will be an eclipse.

  I think point seven is where I really got my sister Bodil’s attention with and why she seemed surprised by my mindset.

  A lunar eclipse for a werewolf is not really good news. Whilst the eclipse may not take a terribly long time, in itself, the affects for us, take longer.

  It’s a weird thing, a truly weird thing to experience. It’s like having all your werewolf urges come to the forefront of your very being and not able to do anything about them.

  It can be quite maddening, if you’re not schooled enough to get yourself through it in human form. Either form you take, is kind of affected one way or the other. Seriously, weird.

  Having a human mind in a werewolf body and having a werewolf mind in a human body and struggling to figure out where you are or what form you’re in. Who you are, it’s weird.

  An eclipse for werewolves, again, regardless of type, is an equalizer for this reason alone. You kind of have to pick your side, when an eclipse is coming.

  Do you sit it out in human form, or werewolf form?

  Because you can’t shape shift during a lunar eclipse. Well, actually, you can’t shape shift a few hours before or after a lunar eclipse. Generally speaking, werewolves go off the basic rule of shape shifting a good twelve hours before an eclipse is supposed to happen.

  Once shape shifted, these werewolves will stay shifted for the entire eclipse event and the, following twelve hours afterwards because it’s impossible to shape shift otherwise. Even Alpha wolves can’t bring on or end their shifts like normal.

  This is part two of my advantageous plan to get back at Gabby. I’m rather counting on us having a hold of her by then and keeping her in human form for the duration of the eclipse.

  Because lunar week December 2010 there will be an eclipse, which means, there’s more advantages to me during this time frame of opportunity, than there is to her. Hence the surprise, sneak-attack, tactic.

  But it gets better.

  For me.

  I’m rummaging through what seems like an endless closet in the family home.

  “What are you doing?” Markus asks me, half tripping over a discarded box of some

  junk or other. I fling something soft aside, not looking at it. I hear the way the

  material whips in the air and is caught by Markus behind me.

  “I’m looking for something.” I mumble back at him frustrated, I can’t find what I

  thought was in there. “Damn.”

  “Well maybe if you told me what you were looking for I could help you find it.”

  Markus replies as I sigh and stop searching. I’ve identified everything on the high shelf above my head and none of it’s what I want.

  I turn around to look back at my brother. “I’m looking for a cheat.”

  His eyebrows shoot up with surprise. “A cheat.” I raise my eyebrows as if to say – you know, what that is. Markus shakes his head. “A cheat, as in…” he shrugs his shoulders. “I have no idea what you’re not saying here.”

  “What do werewolves consider cheating, Markus?” I reply snatching the material out of his hands and throwing it back up on the shelf before starting to drag all the items I’ve chucked out of the closet, back in.

  This time he gets it, in an instant.

  “Weapons. You’re looking for weapons?”

  “Right.” I mutter, dragging boxes back into the closet. Werewolves consider using weapons in a fighting situation, cheating. Normally, because we consider ourselves weapons.

  “What the hell kind of trouble are you in exactly?”

  I sigh and lift one box back up onto the shelf above me, I feel extra hands steady the box and shove it back further on the shelf. Markus moves back and I’m slow to look up at his face.

  “I’m not in any trouble.” I say truthfully. But the suspicion is there, his eyes are darting, trying to figure me out. “Honestly, it’s not me that’s in trouble.”

  “But you’re looking for weaponry in our family home. Because….” He waits for me to fill him in. Like I’m supposed to. I shuffle more items back into the closet and step back to close the closet doors. Damn family, why do they require honesty.

  “Do you remember the year after I was hunted?” I ask more defensively than intended, and cross my arms over my chest.

  “That was a really long time ago, we were just kids.”

  “Teenagers, but whatever,” I correct him. He’s right, it was a really long time ago now, but it’s funny how it hasn’t faded from my mind completely or my life entirely. To me it doesn’t feel that long ago.

  Even saying the words that I was hunted make me feel more vulnerable than I’ve ever felt in my entire life. Not that I’d tell my brother or family that. I guess you could say, it’s kind of what inspired me to take this fight to Gabby. To formulate this plan.

  “What exactly am I supposed to be remembering?” He asks, his curiosity now touched with concern.

  “The year after I was hunted, father had me under guard, all the time. And he made me undertake training.”

  “Yeah, that’s right, but it wasn’t fighting or self defense, was it? I remember now, cause I got into a fight with him over what he was teaching you.”

  I put a hand on Markus’s arm and offer a soft smile. “You’re concern for me is touching. But everyone in this family seems to think I’m incapable of looking after myself when things like this, like that, happen.”

  “It’s not that we don’t think you can look after yourself. It’s more that we’re concerned and we love you and we don’t want anything further, bad, to happen to you. There’s a difference you know.”

  “I know. But sometimes it just feels like, I’m the baby of this family and well, I’m not. Joss is the youngest and yet he doesn’t get treated like this. He doesn’t get babied and coddled.”

  Markus breaks out into a big smile. “You’re loved sis, loved. Not coddled. Besides,” He says “You can’t fight for shit.”

  I go to take a swipe at me and he jumps out of the way laughing.

  “Oh like you can.” I reply smiling. “So where do you think father keeps the cheats?”

  Markus looks around us and scratches his head, thinking.