Page 66 of My Fugitive Wolf
Carlie nodded after Samara told her what she needed and jogged away, realizing just as George had, that talking Samara out of her plan was useless. Waiting was agony, but she used that time to secure the pouch and shove the boxes of bullets inside. The gloves were too big for her, but she’d have to work around that when she needed to reload. By the time she had finished, Carlie had returned with her secret weapon, a sixty-four-ounce bottle of colloidal silver. This she would have to keep in her hand as she made her way to the camp.
She faced the only other people in the world that she trusted more than the brothers. "The van has a full tank of gas. There's more stuff in there you can use to protect yourself. No phones, and change your clothes first, just like Kellen said. The man after me won't think anything about going after your kids if he thinks it'll help him find you."
"We'll never be able to return?" Carlie started to tear up, making Samara feel worse.
“Just keep an eye out for those ads.”
There wasn't anything else she could say, so she gave them both a quick and final hug while whispering, "Be safe." Without looking back, she jogged farther down the road so she could cross the street without the sheriff or anyone else seeing her.
Once in the woods, she quickly reoriented herself to find her tree and continued heading east. Ten minutes later she slowed down. If she was going in the right direction, the camp would be in front of her. At least she was downwind from this angle, so there was less of a chance of the Riverstone Pack picking up her scent.
Thinking about the map on Stephen's laptop, Samara circled around so the line of outhouses was right in front of her. If the guards still avoided that area, the stench would mask her scent and help her sneak toward the perimeter.
A few minutes later the overwhelming smell of piss and shit hit her. She slowed down even further to avoid making a racket while walking on the fallen leaves. Just before she reached the perimeter, she craned her neck to look for the nearest guards. Leo had been right, no one had wanted to stand anywhere near that horrible smell. Hunching down, she shuffled forward until the back of the outhouses blocked her view of the campground.
The quiet of the forest unnerved her. It was as if the wildlife had picked up on the evil that trespassed on these grounds and knew to stay away. While the forest was quiet, the pack was not. The sharp sound of a muffled howl followed the rattle of chains and caustic laughter.
Rage at the sound of that voice engulfed her and made her dizzy. Temptation to just charge into the camp, guns blazing and blowing Josiah's head off almost overcame her. Then another sensation washed over her. A cool sense of calmness pushed back against her grandfather's wolf shadow.
Had her own wolf shadow started to fight back against her grandfather's? Was she back to where she was when she first escaped Riverstone—torn between two wolf shadows, one hellbent on revenge and one demanding survival at all costs? Closing her eyes, Samara turned her focus inwards. She'd managed to convey her thoughts to Kellen's wolf shadow, so why couldn't she do the same with her own?
All right you two, calm the fuck down, now. I need your help. I will free Kellen and the others, but if you can't help me, then be quiet. Here are the rules. Primum Genus Suum , you don't come out to play until I tell you. As for you, alpha wolf, you keep me steady. If you can't work with Primum Genus Suum, I swear I'll buy another sixty-four ounces of silver and drink it down in one damn gulp.
If the wolf shadows were a part of her, then all she was doing was talking to herself. It didn't matter. All that she cared about was that it worked. Both wolf shadows stopped pulling her in opposite directions and let her take control of her actions.
The sound of pain from inside the camp changed. Another voice. Someone else was taking the brunt of Josiah's cruelty. She needed to see what Josiah was doing and where exactly he was in relation to the perimeter of the camp.
She looked up to see that the outhouses appeared to have flat roofs. First, she lowered her backpack to the ground with the rifle and drone. Then she pressed against the buildings to give her leverage when she jumped and grabbed the edge of the middle outhouse. At least her preternatural strength had returned, making it easy to pull her body weight and the other weapons she carried to the top.
What she saw as she lay flat sickened her. The guards surrounded a burned-out fire pit with Kellen and Grace sitting off to one side, chains around their legs and wrists. Behind them, an omega had his meaty fingers dug into their scalps, forcing them to watch Josiah use Stephen, who was also restrained by chains, as a punching bag. Leo lay nearby, also chained, but also half shifted. If this was the limit of the protection spell, the protection spell needed a hell of a stronger punch.
Swallowing back bile, she noticed it looked like the skin around Stephen's chains had turned his skin blue mixed with blood red. That could only mean that the chains were silver based and were poisoning them. Josiah was one sick and twisted bastard.
The full truth of what happened a century and a half ago revealed itself in a terrible image superimposed on what she was witnessing. If Kellen was an alpha, that meant Grace was also an alpha. And if alphas only mated with other alphas, that meant that Kellen's father had to be the alpha of the Riverstone Pack. The same alpha that Josiah murdered in front of Kellen and Grace. He was recreating what he did back when he attacked the pack by making Kellen and Grace watch him slowly kill the ones they cared about the most.
Her thoughts raced. How could she make this stop before Leo and Stephen succumbed to the silver poisoning them?
A small poke urged her to start shooting, but that would only make things worse. The first shot would alert the guards on the perimeter. If she could find a way to release Kellen and Grace from their chains, that would increase their odds, but could silver bullets splinter silver chains? Silver wasn't that strong of a metal in the first place.
Josiah gave Stephen a last kick to the face before turning back to Leo, who despite the silver poisoning had managed to heal enough to almost stand. It just made Josiah smile as he resumed beating him. As he raised his fist high, Samara saw a keychain flopping around his belt.
That was what she needed. The keys to the chains. But how could she get them from Josiah and release at least one of the others? The only way she could get close to him was to confront him, but before that she needed to even the odds.
Shimmying back down to the ground, she opened the backpack and removed the drone. With some creative pulling, she released the camera from the mount and replaced it with the bottle of silver. Then she retreated farther away from the camp, but not before hearing another howl of anguish.
About twenty feet from the camp's edge, she set down the rifle and took out the laptop. Pulling up the screen she saw an icon of the drone's brand. She had expected the usual complications of learning new software, but suspected Stephen had streamlined it to make it easier for himself. In a matter of minutes, she started the drone's engine and maneuvered it high enough so that it would be hard to see against the forest's canopy. When she had it hovering over the guards nearest her, she set down the control, stood up, and positioned herself so she could aim for the drone.
She remembered the lessons in control her grandfather taught her and prayed they were enough. Line up the sight, breath out, and gently pull the trigger.
The bullet hit the bottle under the drone, sending a spray of silver far and wide, hitting four of the guards. Their screams gave her strength, but she’d forgotten about her own sensitive hearing. Ignoring the harsh sounds stabbing at her eardrums, she marched forward, using the hand gun to pump the falling guards full of silver bullets to make sure they were dead.
By that point, two of the other omegas had shifted and ran toward her back, but she whirled around, found her rifle and sent a burst of bullets in their direction, stopping them dead in their tracks.
Josiah turned to the rest of his omegas. “Shift, damn you! Use your damn guns, but don’t kill her!”
Before they could fire on her, Samara retreated behind the outhouses and hauled herself back on top. From there, she quickly shot two more of his omegas.
How does it feel, Josiah? Do you even have a taste of what it's like to get ambushed, to watch those around you die? No, of course not. You don't care who dies as long as it isn't you. You know how powerful my grandfather’s wolf shadow is. You won’t even risk casting a spell to immobilize me because I might have the same power to transfer it to Kellen, and you know with two alpha shadows, he’ll kill you faster than you can run.
