Chapter Twenty-One
Austin successfully completed the obstacle course once it had been checked over.
Three more days of trials went by, with various tests of speed and endurance. The men each had to race a certain distance, timed, lift stacks of weights, throw hundred-pound weights twenty feet, and climb hundred-foot-high rock walls.
During the day, James and Anita sat with Taylor for several hours and had her do meditation exercises to prepare her for being a werewolf. Chantelle sat and watched, weirdly fascinated.
Finally, bright and early, the competitors were getting ready to go hunting. They’d shift into their wolf forms and bring back big game for the Elders’ inspection and approval. It was an ancient tradition, from the days when the Alpha’s hunting prowess might be the only thing that kept the pack from starving during a long, cold winter. These days it had no real meaning, but werewolves were hide-bound by tradition.
The Bronson brothers were gathered at the starting line, sipping coffee and swapping insults. Jerrold stood apart from the group with his own men huddled around him, shooting threatening looks at everybody. Taylor was there, and Anita, Mandy and Chantelle had come for moral support.
“Prepare to get your asses kicked.” Grant gloated to his brothers.
“I’m prepared to stab my own eardrums out rather than listen to any more of your bragging.” Austin looked disgusted.
“Big deal,” Grant scoffed. “They’d grow back. Now stabbing yourself in the gut, that takes balls.”
“Boys,” Taylor said, “why don’t you just whip them out and measure them and get it over with?”
“I would, but I don’t want to make Austin and Cliff cry,” Grant said, and swaggered off.
Chantelle, Taylor and Anita exchanged glances that were part amusement, part exasperation.
“Would his eardrums really grow back?” Taylor asked.
“Oh, definitely. For someone with the Dominus strain, they’d grow back in a few days. For the average werewolf, they’d grow back in a few weeks.”
“So you’re what’s known as a healer, I’m told,” Chantelle observed. “Could you help them grow back faster?”
Anita scoffed. “Doing major healing is incredibly draining. If they stabbed themselves? Bleed away, boys, mama’s got better things to do.”
The starting whistle blew, and the men shifted in a flash and ran into the woods.
The women wandered off. The finish line festivities would start up in about an hour. The men weren’t expected to return until at least noon.
Rusty and Truman, both carefully avoiding each other, followed Chantelle as the group of women trudged off to the downtown coffee shop. It was a twenty-minute walk from the edge of the forest back into town, but the weather was perfect, in the high sixties, and they chatted and joked as they walked.
Rusty and Truman each sat at different tables staring at Chantelle while the women got their drinks. They watched every step Chantelle took.
“How ridiculous is this?” Chantelle asked Taylor as they walked past Rusty’s table. “What would I do, try to walk out of here? The exit is gated and the woods are full of werewolves.”
“Should have thought about that before you trespassed on wolf land,” Rusty snapped.
Taylor pretended to trip and spilled her cup of coffee on his lap. He howled in pain and leaped to his feet.
“Excuse me, I’m so sorry,” Taylor said sweetly. “I meant to do that when the coffee was hotter.”
“Crazy half-werewolf bitch!” Rusty snarled, and hurried to the counter to get paper towels as Chantelle gasped with laughter.
Taylor took Chantelle aside. “You’re wearing a full face of makeup at seven in the morning. Foundation. Blush. Lipliner. Gloss. Mascara. You even contoured. Talk to me. Do you have a crush on Truman?”
Chantelle snorted and looked out the window. “There are handsome, sexy guys all over the place. Why wouldn’t I want to look my best?”
“Why are you avoiding looking me in the eye? You only do that when you’re lying.”
Chantelle looked back at her. “Oooh, I’m Taylor the human lie detector.”
“Actually, if we’re being accurate, I’m Taylor the werewolf lie detector. Quit avoiding the question, wench, because if you think— Hey!”
Anita was sprinting for the door.
She was a healer. Someone had been badly injured.
Taylor’s heart dropped to her shoes. Cliff?
She bolted after Anita.
Several men were waiting for Anita in a car idling at the curb. Anita leaped in and the car took off. Taylor and Chantelle, with Rusty and Truman on their heels, ran after the car, back towards the starting line, where Cliff’s men and Jerrold’s men were milling around, shouting at each other, furious.
As they arrived, Cliff and Grant came trotting out of the forest, and Taylor started breathing again.
“What happened?” she cried out. From the grim looks on their faces, something had gone terribly wrong at the trials. Again.
Cliff pointed to two men hurrying out of the woods with Austin on a stretcher. He looked as pale as a ghost and his entire left side was drenched with blood, which dripped off his arm and splattered on the ground.
“If he’s still bleeding, he was shot with silver,” Taylor heard someone say.
Austin’s breath was coming in tortured pants. He gestured weakly at Grant and Cliff.
They hurried over. Taylor followed but stood back.
“I just want you to know…” Austin rasped weakly.
He coughed. They leaned in closer.
“Austin. Stay with us,” Grant said to him in a low, urgent voice.
“You’re fine. Anita’s here. Just hang in there,” Cliff urged him.
Anita kneeled down next to him and put her hands on his blood-drenched arm.
“I just want you to know…”
“Yes?” Cliff said.
“That you’re a couple of douchebags. Especially you,” he added to Cliff.
“Seriously? Grow up,” Cliff snapped at him.
“Does that mean I’d be like you? Tight-assed, miserable control freak? Doesn’t seem like…much…fun…” He passed out.
* * * * *
It was a long few hours back at Cliff’s mansion before they finally got word that Austin would pull through. He’d been shot with a silver bullet, but he’d dug it out of his shoulder with his claws before it poisoned him too badly. Nobody knew who’d shot him; whoever had done it had gotten away clean.
James began the lengthy, tedious process of truth-challenging every non-contestant who’d been in the area, to find out if any of them had shot Austin or sabotaged the rope course, or knew who had.
Austin had volunteered to drop out of the trials, but since Anita said he’d be healed in a few days, the Elders had refused. If he dropped out, he’d still be banished. Serafina had gone to his bedside and burst into tears and begged him not to drop out, so he’d reluctantly agreed.
Unfortunately, that meant that the trials would probably run past the full moon. They’d wanted to get them over with before then, but it couldn’t be helped.
Taylor was sitting in the parlor reading when Cliff brought in a plate of steak tartare. Before she knew what she’d done, she grabbed it out of his hands.
She practically inhaled the whole thing before stopping for breath. Then she said, “How did you know?”
“It’s that time of month.” He grinned at her. “So to speak. For the next few days, you’re going to be craving raw meat.”
She looked regretfully at the plate. “I didn’t leave any for you. I’m sorry.”
“You should be,” he said, looking deeply wounded. “We’re going to be mates. Sharing everything. And you didn’t leave me one little crumb.”
“Jeez. I’m not usually like that.” Then she looked at him closely. “Hey, you’ve got a chunk of raw meat on your collar!”
He flicked it off. “You got me. I ate three pounds of it in the kitchen before I came out here.”
“You’re an absolute son of a bitch.” She slapped at him, and he easily warded her off.
He laughed. “You’re just now figuring that out?”
“You remind me every day.”
“You know what else I remind you of every day?” He pinned her down on the couch and his hands slid up under her shirt. “That you’re mine. You belong to me. Want to argue about it?”
She felt a rush of arousal. “If I do, do you promise you’ll spank me?”
“Hey, we’ve got trouble!” Chantelle yelled, rushing into the room. Truman and Rusty were right behind her.
Taylor scrambled to pull her clothes back into place. “Really!” she said indignantly. “Have you ever heard of knocking?” Now she knew what blue balls felt like. Ouch.
“What couldn’t wait?” Cliff grumbled. “Is somebody dead? Somebody better be dead.”
“Worse,” Truman said, sounding exasperated.
“What’s worse than someone being dead?” Taylor said, worried.
“The possibility of an entire town full of humans showing up on our doorstep right before the full moon,” Truman said. He held up Chantelle’s cell phone. “Her parents just texted her.”
Chantelle glared at him, grabbing for the phone. He held it up out of her reach.
She turned to Cliff in exasperation. “I sent them a copy of the map that Taylor sent me, so they know where we are. They aren’t buying that ‘need to prepare for the wedding’ thing. They texted me to say that they think Taylor and I have been kidnapped, and if I don’t answer them in fifteen minutes they’ll call the cops, notify the media, and round up everyone in town and show up on your front doorstep. And since this idiot won’t give me back my phone, we’ve got about one minute left before they go viral on your ass.”