Pawn Among Wolves Ch. 17

Muffled cries filtered through the double doors leading to the back of the balcony level of the auditorium: howls and the scents of thick, fresh blood and fear. The doors were slightly ajar.

On the short landing several yards ahead of Gemma, almost too swiftly for her to follow, Mac dove for the base of the entrance, twisting onto his back with a palm braced and extended over his head. As one hand slammed open the door, the other flashed blindingly quickly through the widening crack and bit into the raised, clawed foot of the leader of the wolves waiting to ambush them. His momentum sweeping him through the entrance on his back, Mac's shoulders heaved and he swung the enemy wolf in a vicious circle around the rest of the awaiting ring, the razor-sharp claws of his hapless scythe shearing through the ambush, sheeting blood.

Gemma didn't see what her mate did next. Up here, she had a clear view beyond to the events on the ground floor and her nose drew her eyes to what was happening below, near the stage entrance. The view shocked her into stillness. Nicolas Grey and Louise Faulk were standing side-by-side with their backs against the stage, a reception for ranks of chained wolf slaves who were being dragged in by several Faulk and Grey guards. Some of the chained wolves were fighting desperately. Others staggered in dazed, drugged. Either way, the efficient, indifferent claws of the Faulk and Nicolas Grey sheered through the jugular of each in turn, before the guards tossed the bodies onto a growing pile in front of the stage. A factory of slaughter - it was so efficient. Inhuman. Why?

Her heart jolted as her mate speared a savage conveyance into her head: the Louse and Grey were killing their imprisoned enemies, wolves who Gemma and Mac had hoped to free.

Rage surged in Gemma's throat, and she darted forward.

Firm hands grabbed her shoulders, and Warren hauled her back.

"No," the warrior hissed under his breath. "You insanely angry are manageable. He is not." The other four of her pack who Mac had ordered to guard her formed a tight-packed shield wall around her.

"I can't just -," spat Gemma, and then she broke off as a piercing yowl sounded from underneath the balcony. At the same time an echoing shout thundered in her head.

All warriors to me, Mac's incensed order reverberated through all her pack, together with a stark image of the slaughter in the room below. The conveyance was open, it was broadcast violently to all wolves within his range, judging from the winces creasing the faces of every wolf in the room - even the Louse flinched momentarily, and glanced up at the enraged Alpha slashing indomitably through the ranks on the balcony who were struggling to even slow his passage.

However, even as he called, Mac's mind was furrowed with doubt, racing through possibilities - why the hell this ostentatious showy killing? It would be simpler, quicker, to have the guards kill the dissidents in their cells. The reason, he feared, was to draw the rebels here, consolidate them for some sort of trap - what? He was dubious about calling them. Yet neither could he just leave the Faulk to her slaughter.

So he would just spring the trap and deal with whatever she flung at his wolves. Damn her. Damn Grey. They would regret this.

A flashing cloud of ash-blonde fur was fighting her way toward the stage below, leaping onto one of the guards who was dragging the next victim forward. Natasha was still limping, but lethal. At her back was the huge, feral-eyed bulk of the wolf who had been holding her wrists downstairs: the first wolf outside the Gems to receive the antidote. He was lumbering more stiffly than the lithe sjeste, limbs more accustomed to confinement than freedom, but no enemy came within his orbit and survived. The anger burning off the pair of them was hair-raising, even from this distance.

However, there were hundreds to Faulk wolves in the room; nearly all of the guards, all shifts, plus a small troop of Greys. The three Alpha warriors were struggling against the tide of such numbers, while the swift, brutal slaughter continued.

On Mac's call, the flickers of erratic thoughts from her pack had coalesced into one strong, coherent stream and Gemma could feel their rapid convergence on the auditorium, the pull of that command, together with the reason behind it, reeling them in effortlessly.

Moreover, the Gems had fewer opponents to fight through. The bludgeon of Mac's image of what was happening in here seemed to have floored many of the Faulk guards still fighting outside. Those who had not been selected for this duty - because they would not acquiesce with this?

Rupert burst in the doorway at the rear of the stalls, at the head of a swirling troop of furious Gems and their new allies. Seconds later Andrea and Mo leapt through the emergency exit to the right. The screams and snarls of killers and defenders escalated in a crescendo, driving the black rage higher in her head while Gemma struggled against the limbs holding her back, crying in anger.

Then a new wolf scent materialised beside her and Alan's voice snapped urgently in her ear as he slapped one hand over her eyes, the other over her mouth: "This isn't your anger. Separate yourself. One of you has to keep calm!" The scent of his vinegar-soaked fingers shocked Gemma back into reason with a shudder of revulsion, and she heaved a deep, repulsed breath as she apologetically withdrew the claws which had automatically risen to sink into Alan's arm.

Both of her second's hands lifted, and she and Alan stood side-by-side for a moment, watching the bloodbath below. The view was shocking, but not as frightening as the fury of the storm clouds scudding through her head.

Through Mac.

Her Alpha was furiously slaying his way toward the front of the balcony, directly above the murderous pair by the stage. What had happened to her Mac? His control had always been so calm, so deep, a still silent ocean which nothing had ruffled. Yet in an instant, witnessing this soulless killing had whipped the ocean into a colossal, destructive medley of emotions, howling in a grip of a hurricane. Gemma staggered where she stood, leaning back against a pillar as she felt her mate giving free reign to the tearing maelstrom of his killing rage, unleashing it, pulling all of the wolves in his battle meld to respond with the same ruthless drive while he led them into the vicious melee.

Gemma's own emotions steadied, pulling away from Mac's brutal will to retaliate. For a moment, she had been able to sense all of his wolves: both her tiny pack in the battle meld here, plus layer upon countless layer of wolves clinging from the outside. The tendrils of their vows were knotted in his mind, thousands of gossamer threads straining together to follow the spear thrusts of his searing commands. The depth and number of their knots was excruciating, smothering.

Resentment rose in Gemma as she had felt the deep-rooted, jangling pain caused by the innumerable thoughts clashing through Mac's mind. The pain of the constant tearing at him was feeding the collective fury, drowning him in bloodlust: his, and theirs.

Then a cold douche of fear followed as she realised: without those threads, Mac would be lost. Battle brought a wolf's most primitive emotions to the fore, and a wolf needed to be stable, strong, in order not to sink into berserk rage. Or he needed an even stronger Alpha to hold him in a steady meld. Her wolves trusted Mac to prevent them from breaking apart, yet gouged through the Aster Warlord himself, splitting him in two, was the loss of his mate.

Mac should be disintegrating under the primal urge driving him. He needed to let go, drop into the cold, lost paths his desolation had scored through his mind over the past months. The chasm was too deep to have healed; the fear was almost more unbearable now that he was at risk of losing her again.

Yet throughout numerous battles over the last months, her Alpha had been unable to completely submerge under his despair and anger. Then, as now, he had been incapable of dragging the massive weight of the thousands of filaments down with him into insanity - all those minds, all those wolves. Awash with pain, Mac had wavered several times on the brink. But he was an Alpha. He couldn't drag them all down with him.

Her Alpha.

Gemma could feel her renewed bond with him strengthening, her resolve hardening as she witnessed what drove this reckless savagery. Her mate was finding relief in killing, as he had done countless, countless times over the past months.

Sadness and anger churned through her, and Gemma leaned weakly on the pillar behind her.

He needed time and peace to heal. To bring him back to himself.

Mac, she called.

The effect was instantaneous.

As though seared with an electric shock, Mac suddenly kicked out of the destructive, avenging cycle with which he was leading yet one more battle meld. Reset, as though blinking in a strong light, his heart suddenly smoothed. The turbulent, crashing force of his rage was reeled in, contained, and then redirected in clear thrusts of thought, the power channelled and directed cleanly, and she could feel the answering tremor of awareness running through all of their pack. The impact of the battle meld had just multiplied with the clarity of their Alpha. No energy wasted in turbulent rage.

Stay with me, picchu. I will stay calm if you just - stay with me. Mac's mind was echoing in guilt and relief, deeply shaken. The rage was so enmeshed in him, he had not melded without it in so long, his battles were now all fought this way. Yet his mate had just reached through his shields as though they weren't there: no one could do that. No-one else had been able to even see the vicious emotion that had led them, all these months. But now - he was pulled back by the shame of what she had seen in him: his picchu.

Gemma sighed shakily, and looked up at Alan. "I will stay safe," she promised quietly, the knowledge shocking through her. She had to ensure her Alpha stayed centred; he loathed what he became now, in battle. She shared the promise with her mate. However, a wistful thought pulled at her: they were her pack, too.

I need an overview of the whole fight, Mac said. He was succinct by necessity as he caught a swell of urgent thoughts slinging at him. But Gemma melted in the emotion lacing the brief conveyance: Mac couldn't hide his relief - he was relying on her to hold him stable.

"Then I will join the fray, if you permit, my Alfamme," Alan responded formally, his sombre eyes empty of their usual sarcasm as he hovered beside her, quivering. Gemma nodded, and her second disappeared beyond her shield wall in moments.

The wereem glanced up at the banks of huge lights suspended in rows from the ceiling, and murmured to her bodyguards out of the corner of her mouth, "Any idea how to get up there?"

By the time they had scrambled as fast as they could up the access ladders onto the main gantry, the fight had changed.

Gemma lay flat on the mesh walkway, facing down, her five guards swiftly stationing themselves around her, each facing out in a different direction. Gemma linked with them and with Mac, feeling like an eagle, keenly observing every nuance of movement in the room below through six sets of eyes, holding an open stream of imagery for all of her pack.

They were in trouble: the trap had been sprung. With all of the rebels now centred here, more Faulk were pouring through the doors to the auditorium, the bulk of the main pack from above ground, reinforcements called in to separate and surround the 'invaders'. Only the superior speed, alertness and cohesive meld of the small band of rebels had kept them from yet being overwhelmed.

Plus Mac kept bludgeoning the reinforcement wolves with images of what had been happening in this hidden lair, which they hadn't even known existed. He seared into their heads graphic scenes of the murder which their Alfamme had been perpetrating only minutes earlier, punctuated with shattering stills of her ringmastering the warm-up acts at the Advent show, acts that Mac had endured while waiting for his mate's appearance. The Faulk kept trying to reinforce her meld shield, but she was not strong enough to hold Mac out and each time he punctured delicately through, they could all hear the Louse broadcasting screaming denials, warning her pack that they were being spooked by enemy propaganda.

Why didn't Mac just crash her?

There was revulsion and disbelief in the eyes of many of the Faulk. The arriving wolves couldn't deny the scents steeped into the room, and the blood of the victims lying beside the stage was smeared over the hands of their Alfamme, the chains of the fallen still looped through the lifeless heap.

Gemma watched several of the new Faulk wolves alternating between jerking into movement and staggering to a halt like characters in a badly streamed download. "What's going on?" she asked.

"They're fighting the meld," Simone answered gleefully.

"What?" said Gemma.

Warren explained: "When you cleave to an Alpha - the wolf is the one holding on. He or she can let go at any time, circle." Yeah. She could feel that. All of her wolves clinging onto her. Ow.

"Except when the Alpha melds them - expands his shield, pulls all the oaths together, into one huge shell, and it locks the oaths in place. You can't let go, not in the meld," explained Simone.

"But that lot want to," Warren said, pointing to the jerky puppets below. "They're trying to let go. No single wolf can break out of a battle meld, but if enough are fighting, all together, then the meld becomes unstable, and disintegrates."

"She's finding it hard to control them?" asked Gemma. "Is that why they stop and start?"

"You felt it, didn't you Alfamme? In the meld, we're all kind of - naked to you. Disobeying hurts, then; most of the time, it doesn't even occur to us," said Simone.

"Unanimis lupi," muttered Zeb, behind her. Whatever.

Gemma hadn't thought about it before, but when they had been running to the lab, fighting their way through the Faulk, she had never even thought of her wolves not doing as she wished, hadn't even really thought of them as them. Only us: her pack had followed her thoughts just as her arm or leg would have.

Her eyes were fixed on the jerky movements of the newly arrived Faulk wolves fighting the meld, she saw the shiver run through them each time her mate gently punctured the Faulk's shields with another disturbing image. How many rebels would it take to tip the balance?

Then a halo of fine, ash-blonde hair dancing far below drew Gemma's eyes off to one side. Natasha Vanilchov was alone in the centre left of the ground-floor seating, swirling unceasingly, holding back a raging tide of combatants, never still for a moment, leaping, lunging and dodging in deadly grace.

Gemma's eyes widened as she realised why the Vanilchov Alfamme seemed closer, spotlighted among the other wolves teeming below. She was fighting on the chair backs. Stunned, the wereem's gaze dropped to the flashing, slender legs - Tasha's feet were misted by a cloud of white fluff ripped from the upholstery as her rear claws bit into chairback after chairback while she danced effortlessly across the rows of seating among her enemies.

A stab of furious terror from her mate presaged the sight which Mac had feared as soon as Gemma had focussed on Tasha: Nicolas Grey, poised in his flight through one of the side doors near the fighting sjeste, was lifting his gun toward her prominent figure. Gemma heard a heavy, double-echo of Get down! hit the Vanilchov Alfamme just as a press of Faulk warriors surged forwards and forced the blonde to sway towards them, unaware of Grey levelling the weapon at her back.

Gem! Mac called, pulsing a frantic image. His mate found herself already diving head-first from her perch, his plan clear in her mind. The tight mesh of their thoughts held no room for doubt, and the distant floor beyond the balcony rail was not drawing her as urgently as his eyes. Then she flashed past him, Mac's hands locked around her ankles, and Gemma swooped in a wide arch, suspended upside down in his grip while her mate looped dizzyingly upside-down under a heavy-duty camera pole protruding from the balcony front, his rear claws locked together behind the strut. They were a beautiful pair of acrobats, perfectly choreographed, in complete harmony. When Gemma neared the nadir of their swing, the sharp blue eyes of the Vanilchov sjeste looked up as though to a sharp call, clashing with hers. Tasha leapt to meet Gemma, hands reaching like a small child for a parent.

It felt so right.

The wereem grabbed the Alfamme around the waist and with the force of hers and Mac's combined momentum, half-swung, half-flung her, claws outstretched, across the gap into the face of her startled enemy. Nick stumbled backward, his head snapping up from the sights of the gun he had been focussing along, face turning white.

Complete harmony. Of all of Grey's victims, one stood out. This kill was Tasha's.

Mac had already let go and was somersaulting upright, flipping his mate above him and spinning her so that she landed breathless on one of his shoulders just as his legs absorbed their momentum as they hit the carpeted floor, one of his hands swiping out to swat away the closest enemy wolf at the same time.

Gemma had twisted automatically to look over her shoulder at where the Vanilchov sjeste had landed on Nicholas Grey, leaving her own safety to Mac. Natasha's limbs were whirling almost faster than Gemma could follow, her opponent shadowing in hurried defence: a rake to the neck - blocked; spinning kick - blocked; drop and spring upward back inside his defence, led by a lethal, outstretched hand - Gemma's heart jolted as she watched Nick slam backwards with blood suddenly spurting from his throat, then jerk a second time as he fell, punctured in the chest by five razor-claws, his legs folding like wet cardboard.

Damn. In the end, it had been so fast.

The wereem's eyes rested stunned on the limp figure of the dark-haired, elegantly dressed bane of her last year, lying sprawled on the floor underneath his former victim. Tasha was already tearing into the Grey wolves still centred around their late leader, her fury seemingly unabated.

But Gemma couldn't drag her eyes away from the ungainly sprawl of stilled limbs. Was that it?

Then the wereem's eyes flashed angrily as one of the Grey wolves reached for the dropped gun. A heartbeat later, Tasha's slender foot lashed out in a kick, and brown gaze met blue again on a second moment of clear understanding as the gun flew unerringly through the air towards where Gemma was still sitting on her mate's shoulder. She lunged to catch it, slipping from her perch, and was grabbed and swung around Mac to land lightly on her own two feet among the members of her pack who had run up beside him. A horde of enemies was closing in on them.

Gemma's eyes, burning with a cold light, were drawn beyond, to where Madam Faulk was fighting by the stage. Adam's mordeuse. The gun was heavy in her hand, and she barely noticed as the ring of wolves standing protectively around her engaged.

'No wolf would use silver on another,' her memory of the Silback Alpha's accusation whispered.

She was not a wolf.