Snow crunched under Kent Markes’s feet as he trudged through the woods carrying his younger brother’s body. “A little farther, Curt,” he told the corpse. “Just a little farther.” He knew the exact spot he wanted for his brother’s final resting place.
LeBlanc said nothing as he followed in Markes’s wake. They climbed another steep slope on the border of the werewolves’ territory, to a plateau that overlooked a narrow gorge. A dense ring of conifers hid the precipice until they were almost at the edge.
Markes lay his brother’s sheet-wrapped body in the snow and peeled the covering away from Curt’s face. He stood, looking down on a face that had been so like his own. A narrow nose between deep-set eyes, shoulder-length straight brown hair, and a deceptive bow of a mouth that had enticed, then tormented, more than one female. Now that face bore two deep cuts on the left cheek from a wolf’s forepaw.
“Damn it, Curt.”
Wind blew over the gorge with a moan. The ends of the sheet flapped and Markes ripped them away, revealing the gaping wounds on his brother’s chest and neck from a silver blade. His own guts twisted like he was the one who’d taken a hit of silver.
“Gonna make that fucking bitch pay, brother.”
LeBlanc grunted his agreement. “I wish the sheriff had left Simmons at the morgue tonight.” He flexed his hands as if imagining them around the Beta’s throat. “Woulda been nice to get rid of that bastard.”
Markes would have enjoyed killing the big deputy, too.
The trees bent as another gust of wind whined over the mountainside. Its powerful surge dredged up the stink of rot from down in the gorge. “See, little brother. I wouldn’t leave you alone. You’ll have some playmates here. Those two hikers from Cali were pretty hot, with their string bikini tops.” He laughed, remembering how easily his claws sliced through those skinny little strings. “Though they were kinda screechy. Now that brunette co-ed we picked up on her way to Missoula had a nice throaty moan to her. Especially when we were...admiring her tight ass.” He looked up at a noise from LeBlanc. “What?”
The bear shifter shrugged and his shoulders blocked the light from the first quarter moon. “Just thinkin’ it’s too bad the human females are so breakable. They don’t last nearly long ’nuff.” He looked down at Curt’s body. “Guess that won’t be a problem for him now.”
Absolute fury burned in Markes’s chest and his cougar screamed in his head, forcing claws through the tips of his fingers.
LeBlanc took a knee next to Curt, bowed his head, and said, “Good hunting.” Then he stood and walked down the mountain, leaving Markes alone with the dead.
As he stripped out of his clothes, he heard the whispers of their prey in the wind and shush of pine needles. He didn’t fear them. They couldn’t touch him. Even dead, they wouldn’t be able to touch his brother either. They were just faded humans, as pathetic and weak now as they’d been during their paltry lives. Curt was a true predator, lethal and cunning. The human spirits would remember the beast that had taken them down as easily as he would a fawn, slashed and torn at them, and fed on them as they screamed for mercy.
Dropping to all fours, Markes bowed his head, too. Holding back the change so he could make one final promise to his brother, his voice rumbled out, cold and guttural. “Don’t worry, I’ve got a particular wolf bitch in mind to play with next. Be sending her to you real soon. Gonna play hard with her. Gonna make her hurt, brother.”
The change swept over him in an instant, the pain nothing compared to the agony of his loss. His beast screamed its rage and grief to the goddess, swearing she’d be feasting on wolf flesh before the fullness of her Hunger Moon in less than two days.
The great cat bowed once to its lost kin before sinking its fangs into Curt’s soft belly. Flesh return to flesh, clan to clan, kin to kin.