Chapter Twelve
The holding area was much larger than the transport cage. Metal bars imprisoned them from above and on two sides. The other walls were of stone, much like Benic’s castle. Peder ran his finger over the solid material and picked at the mortar holding it together. Nothing flaked. Too solid to dig through.
Sour smells of shit came from the farthest corner, from what looked like a pit dug in the ground. He made a face, hoping he could wait after nightfall to use it. Besides a narrow makeshift roof protecting the edges of the holding area from rain, there wasn’t much shelter. Thin pallets lined the walls and, thankfully, most seemed unused.
He sensed more than saw Kele’s close presence. The hairs along his arms rose as if in anticipation of her brushing past.
A larger hunter with blue-colored markings loomed over Nahuel. He’d heard stories of the shifter tribes out west doing this to their flesh with ink and needles. And vampires dared call his tribe wild. He shuddered. The way the two males paced around each other didn’t bode well. The center area was empty and someone had scratched a challenge ring in the dirt prior to their arrival.
At times like this, he understood how other races would see theirs as barbaric or crazed. Faced with a common enemy and they still fought among themselves. No wonder the vampires had won the war. They, at least, could get along.
Timothy obviously didn’t understand the nature of wolf shifters if he placed different packs and tribes together. Then again, from the way the guards gathered around the large prison area, shouting bets, he suspected Timothy knew exactly what he was doing.
Peder approached Nahuel from behind and sensed him tense. Omegas shied from confrontation. Most would allow themselves to be beaten before striking back. Peder’s heart raced, pumping blood into his limbs in expectancy to fight. He’d lost the urge to cower. He’d witnessed many challenges but had never fought one. Vendu, his packmate, had been impressed by his increased strength, so maybe he could back Nahuel. Break up the challenge if it went too far.
The spectating shifters circled the ring. Nahuel confronted the bigger male. “Cousin.” He nodded in greeting and spoke with a firm voice, a prime example of a born hunter.
“I am not your family.” The challenging male set a hand on Nahuel’s chest. “You’ve trespassed into my area.”
Peder was glad to see the other shifter spectators jerk at his statement. “We’d happily leave if you can open the door.” He pointed to the locked gate. Some hunters thought only with their muscles and their instincts.
Nahuel tossed him a look indicating Peder wasn’t helping the situation. “We had no choice in the matter. We may not be of the same blood, but our plight should bind us as family. Not tear us apart.” He held out his hand to be gripped as hunters from the same pack did. “This isn’t a time for dominance.”
The challenger stared at it, head tilted to the side as if he didn’t know what the gesture meant. Maybe he didn’t. The Iroq tribe, of which the Apisi were a part, was comprised of six packs. Perhaps this shifter wasn’t among them. It wouldn’t surprise him if this shifter was from the far west. Travel outside their border was so infrequent he couldn’t recall the last time the Apisi met another tribe member.
The hunter slapped Nahuel’s hand out of his way, set his palm in the middle of Nahuel’s chest, and shoved so hard Peder’s friend fell back against the wall. The crack of his skull against stone silenced everyone even the vampire guards.
Nahuel slumped to the floor, unmoving.
Peder hurried to him and laid him flat on the floor, then listened to his chest.
Kele knelt next to him. “I’m a healer.” She ran her hands over Nahuel’s scalp and neck. “No obvious signs of injury.”
“His heart still beats.”
She opened Nahuel’s eyelids and peered at his eyes. “He’s probably just knocked out, but I’ll have to keep a close eye on him for a bit.”
Peder’s gaze narrowed as it landed on the attacker. Was this savage permanently feral in the head? Nahuel had only been trying to make peace.
The attacker crossed his arms. “I won the challenge. You will submit to me.”
Kele rested her hand on Peder’s forearm, following where his glare landed on the hunter. “Will we ever get a moment’s peace?” A reddened line ran across her throat from where Timothy’s knife had rested.
“I think our days of peace are gone.” He’d lived this kind of life before, where fear ran in his blood all day and night. Every day. When the old alpha had taken over the pack, Peder had been just a pup of ten winters old and never had a chance to really know any other kind of life but that of terror. Because he had no parents to protect him, the pack had no choice but to let their alpha claim him. Better for one pup to suffer than all of them.
It grew difficult to breathe. He wasn’t a pup anymore. He wouldn’t let this monster abuse another if he could stand in the way. Head held high, Peder mimicked Nahuel’s stance and approached his attacker. “He was wrong. This is the time for dominance.” Peder stepped into the challenger’s circle for the first time.
The hunter made a noise of surprise.
Peder didn’t bother to shift as he flung forward, tackling his opponent to the ground. Feral law ruled the ring, but that was only a custom. A few shifters tossed together did not a pack make. There was no hierarchy to be climbed here. This was a male who only wanted to dominate, not to give leadership and structure. This western hunter didn’t deserve feral law.
Sorin had trained Peder hard, claiming repetition would give him the fighting reflexes he needed. He said once inside the ring, Peder wouldn’t have time to think about what to do and his body would take over.
He was a good teacher.
Peder brought the fight to the ground where height and speed wouldn’t make a difference. The hunter was bigger than him with more muscles in his one thigh than Peder owned in both his legs, but he’d been taught by a bigger shifter and he knew how to use his size to his advantage.
Their limbs tangled in punching fists and kneeing legs. He took strike after strike until he couldn’t distinguish the ones he landed from the ones he took. The male’s face warped in his vision. He seemed older up close, much like his old alpha.
Peder gasped and jerked from his hold. Twisting, he shook his head but his vision didn’t clear. The alpha wouldn’t hurt them. Peder would protect this pack of misfit shifters. With a snarl that rolled from the bottom of his soul, he launched another attack, except this fight came from his heart.
He got a good grip on the hunter’s damned wrist. For a big male, he was fast. Peder rolled from under him all the while keeping hold of his arm, dragging it behind his back. With a well-placed knee in the middle of his shoulder blade, he wrenched his hand up until the hunter stopped squirming.
Face in the dirt, the alpha’s whole body tensed as Peder straddled him and landed punch after punch to the head. “No more,” Peder shouted. “No more.” His fist ached with each punch he landed but he couldn’t stop.
The alpha cried out and struggled.
Hands wrapped around his arms and pulled him off the alpha—no. He blinked—the hunter. He shook his head and glanced at those holding him down.
Vampires?
One of them poured a bucket of cold water over his head.
He sputtered and spit.
Kele clutched her hands to her chest as she peered around the vampires. She chewed her bottom lip before saying his name.
Slavers. They were with slavers. Not at home. Not…not at home. He shoved the vampires off him. For a shifter, he was average size, but he was still stronger than a bloodsucker when they weren’t darting him.
“Nicely done, Goldie.” Timothy squatted in front of him. “That shifter’s almost twice your weight. You’ve some true fighting skill.” His grin had a sly edge. “And you’ve a wicked streak.”
Peder’s mouth grew parched. All his life, he cared for those in need. It was in his nature, and his role to play in the pack. If a hunter returned injured, an omega tended to them. If a crafter grew lonely, an omega tried to fill that hole. If an alpha couldn’t control his temper…he shuddered. He wasn’t wicked.
Two vampires carried the hunter out of the pen.
Peder’s heart grew heavy. “Is he dead?”
“No, but he might as well be. I can’t sell him in that condition.” Timothy’s gaze traveled over Peder. “But you might be worth your weight in gold. I am happy to have purchased you from Huan.” The shifter exited the pen and locked it with a key hanging at his waist.
Peder rolled on his side and panted. His hands shook. The heat of coming summer rose around him. What had he done? That hunter looked as if he’d hit him with rocks instead of fists.
Something rubbed against his leg.
A strange female. She stroked his calf and bowed her head.
He jerked at her touch and stood. Nausea rolled in his stomach but he fought the urge to vomit. None of them could afford for him to look weak after the peace he’d just won. He was familiar with her posturing. He’d done it enough times.
Another crawled to him and stroked his foot. After years of being omega, unwanted touch was something he’d grown familiar with. Was he truly omega anymore? If he wasn’t, then he didn’t have to do what these females wanted. In truth, they asked what he wanted for a change.
He shook his head, gently pushing their hands away, and strode to a pallet on the far side of the room. His kilt’s waistband was ripped, but with some creative knotting, he got it to sit on his hips once more, if a little low. Dropping on the pallet, he succumbed to exhaustion. He rested against the wall and closed his eyes. If only he could wake from this nightmare. Bending forward, he tried block out the world. He leaned his forehead against his knees and for the first time in months, he prayed.
His hand throbbed with his heartbeat. He examined the swollen knuckles. Served him right to suffer. What had taken over him in the ring? One moment he’d been fighting the strange hunter, the next he’d flashed back onto his old alpha—except he never would have fought the tyrant in reality. It was like he was moonstruck.
Kele knelt next to him. She carried a water skin. “I’m always thirsty after a challenge.” She glared at the omega females who had rubbed his leg. Her threat radiated across the room instantly.
Of its own accord, his gaze traveled to scars and half-healed wounds on her arms. “You fought many challenges since you learned to shift.” He took the skin and drained half of it. The heat seemed almost unbearable.
Outwardly, he needed to appear calm, but inside thoughts tore at his mind as if a beast had been born within his head. Born or already there just waiting to for an opportunity to awaken? He took a shaky breath.
“Peder?” Kele stroked his face. “Are you all right?”
He peered at her under half-closed lids. The fading sun lit upon her pale hair and haloed her head. He hadn’t seen her civil form in months. His memory of her beauty hadn’t faded. “I’m fine. None of his swings landed. He was all muscle and no skill.”
She curled against him and drew his head against her shoulder. “That’s not what I meant.” Her fingertips ran through his hair, getting caught on the knots and tugging his scalp a little. Her scent of winter sharpness filled his nose.
He pulled her into a tight hug.
The scooped neck of her dress sagged enough to give him a glimpse of her breasts. Small and firm with rose-tipped nipples perking against the fabric. Usually viewing nude females after a shift didn’t affect him like this. If he were a wicked male, he’d lay her on this pallet and take what he wanted, even with an audience.
Fuck, just the image of Kele on her back, with those strong legs around his hips, and everyone forced to watch as he claimed her made his cock twitch. He shifted his hips and gathered his kilt in front of his lap to hide his semi-erection. Slowly, he withdrew from her hold. “I’m fine.”
She’d led such a sheltered life compared to his, and he didn’t want to shatter those protective walls around her. In their situation, he imagined she only had a few more hours before one of the slavers did it for him.
He tried to smile but failed utterly. His chest grew tight and he rubbed the growing ache inside. “I lost control.” It was as if his feral side had taken over without him changing shape.
“Sometimes it helps to talk about it.” She stroked his arm, sending arcs of desire back through his body.
With a snort, he shook his head. “No, it makes it worse.” He wished he were home. The others understood without making him put pain into words.
A vampire rang a bell at the gate. “Dinner.”
“Stay here.” She pushed him back down on the pallet and gave him the sweetest, shy smile. “Let me take care of you.”
He stared after her as she gathered their meals.
She wanted to care for him? No one had ever offered before.