Page 54 of Smoke and Moon

The pipe clattered to the floor.

Blood dripped from Valko’s wrist and stained the floor and Bleddyn’s fur.

Bleddyn shifted.Snatching the pipe, Bleddyn performed a roundhouse and kicked Valko across the face.The other man sailed back into the door Chanin was trying to enter.

Chanin growled, prepared to chew through the male to get to the door.Valko, leaner than Bleddyn and stupid, pushed off from the door and ran at Bleddyn, swinging a fist.

Bleddyn took a blow to his shoulder but came back with an uppercut.

“Go, Chanin, I got this.”

Being a dirty fighter, Valko kicked toward Bleddyn’s crotch with his boots.

Anticipating the move, Bleddyn pivoted and took the blow on the inside of his right thigh.He grunted but didn’t go down.Instead, he countered repeatedly with a fist to Valko’s ribs on one side, then the other.

Chanin heard Valko’s grunts and whines behind him as he shifted to grab the doorknob and turn.He entered the room and noticed two things immediately: the room was large and filthy.Farkas had clothing strewn everywhere, and moldy food remnants covered every flat surface.Chanin moved around the room, trying to locate the one person he’d come for.However, when he glanced at the bed, it was so disarrayed that Chanin couldn’t tell if Farkas had recently been there.

But his cousin’s scent was heavy and overpowering.He was either hiding in the space or had recently been in it.

There weren’t any windows, like everywhere else inside the mountain range, but there was an ensuite bathroom.Chanin started toward it to check and see if Farkas was inside, but out of the corner of his eye, he saw a closet door sitting slightly ajar.Ditching his path to the bathroom, he hurried over to the closet.If he was wrong and Farkas was in the bathroom, he knew that Bleddyn would alert him if Farkas rushed out of the room.

Attentive and prepared for an attack, Chanin stepped to the side and flung the door open.No assault came.As he leaned over from where he stood at the side of the door, he peered into the pitch-blackness.His wolf sight let him make out a few articles of clothing askew on hangers and more on the floor.Then he saw it, a shadow moving on its belly through a man-size hole three feet from the ground.

“Shit.”Chanin ran forward toward the back of the closet and dove into the tight space.“Farkas, stop!”

“Fuck you, Chanin!”His cousin’s voice was somewhere before him in the distance.“I’m not going to let you feed me to the fuckin’ Fang Warriors and ruin all my plans.”

Plans?What plans?Chanin continued to push through.A few times, he reached forward and attempted to get ahold of Farkas’s foot.However, he wasn’t close enough.His broad shoulders in the narrow space were slowing him down.“Give up.All your crew is either captured or dead.”

Chanin could feel a breeze fluttering in through the tunnel.

“No.Fuck you.”Like the worm he was, Farkas slithered fast through the space as if he’d practiced more than once to make the journey.

“You will be punished for your crimes.Have some pride and turn yourself in.”

“Never,” Farkas growled.

Then Chanin heard the sound of rustling, and Farkas cried out in pain.

One, two.One, two.Chanin bore down harder with his elbows on the rocky mountain surface.His heart pounded loudly in his ears as his anger at the possibility his cousin was getting away rushed through his heart and pumped his blood faster.

Finally, Chanin plowed through the narrow opening at the end of the tunnel.Thorny, wild bramble bushes poked at him and left scratches deep in his skin.The sun came at him on a blinding angle, making it hard to make out much before him.He repositioned himself along the backside of the mountain, looked left then right, and attempted to catch a glimpse of his cousin.He sniffed, but the location placed him upwind, and he was having difficulty picking up Farkas’s trail.The area sat right on the edge of the Drahk border.

“Farkaaaaaaas!”Chanin growled.“Run, cousin, run.Run for your life because when I catch you, I’ll kill you.”

Bleddyn came out behind him.“We found him this time.We’ll get him again.”

Chanin let out a stream of curses and drove his hands into his hair.Pissed, he allowed his cousin to get the jump on him in escaping.Turning, he saw the blood on his beta’s chest.Some of it had Valko’s scent, but the blood had Bleddyn’s mixed in.Chanin hoped it was only from the thorns.Bleddyn didn’t appear significantly wounded.“Is Valko dead?”

“Unconscious and secure, but I figured you may want to interrogate him.”

He nodded at his second-in-command.“Good thinking.”Chanin looked out toward the horizon, hoping to see a movement anywhere.

“Saw Minsi.She located the Fae.The rogues held them inside one of the laboratory enclosures.But they are both well.”

Lab enclosures.What the hell would the humans have been up to in this facility?“Good.Get them back to their territory with a message for them to let their queen know I’ll contact her soon.”

Chanin stepped forward onto a narrow cliff and searched for a path.

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