Page 53 of Wild Wolf

“Four down, lots to go,” Dante announced. “How many of them do you think we’ll have to kill before they clue in they’ve made a very bad decision?”

The gunfire made holding a conversation difficult, and I took aim and fired at another wolf before replying, “If there’s anything I’ve learned from my time in the military, it’s that when it comes to something like this, they just won’t clue in they’ve made a bad choice because they’re invested. Our deaths are worth more than their lives.”

In a way, the death of the wild wolves bothered me despite understanding we had a choice between being killed or killing. The stench of illness clung to them even after death.

Dispatching them didn’t discourage the second pack, who came to take their place. Their ved’ma came with them, and they wore cowls to protect their faces.

“Looks like your problems are more than just a single wild wolf killing people,” Lane said. To my amusement, the SEAL had fired one shot and killed one wolf, letting me handle most of the work for our little section of the brawl.

I’d done the same when on a mission, hanging back and reserving my ammunition for if I needed to bail someone else out. Then, I’d been far more inclined to maim than kill.

My wolf’s peaceful inclinations had been blown away on the gusting wind, and I could guess as to why: he didn’t view killing Normals as a fair fight. The wolves and ved’ma we battled weren’t Normals, and he knew it.

I appreciated his ability to discern what made a fair fight and what didn’t, although I still regretted the deaths of the wild wolves.

The fault for their illness belonged to the ved’ma and the wolves serving them.

“You are skilled, Sergei Sokolov. We need skilled men,” the ved’ma, a man judging from the sound of his voice, stated in a pleased tone. His choice to speak in Russian annoyed me, as I could only guess he didn’t want anyone else to understand what he said. “Tell your friends to stand down, and they will come to no harm. You have done us a favor killing those sick wolves. That is how we have chosen to test you.”

I glanced at the other wolves, who remained still, although a few ears flicked back. My wolf growled his discontent in my head.

I followed his lead, taking my time to think so I wouldn’t mangle my Russian. “Are your bodark the reason Stanislav Dmitrijevich Morozov no longer lives?”

On second thought, I should have stuck to English, although the ved’ma showed no sign my poor skills with his language bothered him.

“Stanislav Dmitrijevich Morozov made poor choices and went against the wishes of the ved’ma. He was deserving of his death, him and Andrey Alekseevich Fedorov as well.”

“Was Andrey Alekseevich Fedorov not a sumasshedshiy volk?” I frowned. “That is what I had been told.”

“Andrey Alekseevich Fedorov was unfit to become one of us, and he and those responsible for his attempt to become a bodark paid for their transgressions with their lives. You were told a story like everyone else, one that was close enough to the truth. Andrey Alekseevich Fedorov did not have permission to become one of us, and he was not found worthy. His presence would have brought harm to us.”

“I see. And are these all of your wolves? Your wawkalak?”

“Oh, no. These are bodark who wish to earn favor with me and the other enforcers of our pack. The wawkalak are far too valuable to waste on such an endeavor. They have no involvement with this. It would taint them. Come peacefully, Sergei Sokolov. Several of the wawkalak women have shown interest in you. The rare time you do come out of hiding, you are akin to a beautiful ghost, a pure spirit. That animal you keep would be welcome, too.”

“And my friends?”

“We would keep the ones we find to be useful. The rest will be escorted elsewhere.”

My wolf growled, and I almost echoed him, but I kept silent. I turned my body to consider the others with me, switching guns to one with standard bullets rather than the precious silvered rounds meant to kill wolves. Most of the Americans kept watch over the wolves, and the Chinese observed me with interest.

I guessed ‘escorted elsewhere’ involved a shallow grave if given any grave at all. My wolf agreed with me.

In English, I asked, “What do you feel of his sincerity, Cuī Xue?”

Dài Song said something in fluid but rapid Chinese, Cantonese as far as I could tell, and Xue nodded to acknowledge the interpreter. “He speaks pretty words, but his soul is dark.”

That decided me. A dead witch could hurt nobody else, so I revealed my pistol, aimed, and fired. The Russian fell with a spray of blood. Then, in Russian, I stated, “I viewed Stanislav Dmitrijevich Morozov as a friend, which tells me all I need to know about this situation. Choose: fight or run. But understand if you run, should you ever bring harm to someone else at the behest of some idiot witch, I will find you, and I will kill you.”

The wise wolves fled, but most remained.

Unlike the wild wolves, the bodark fought well together, and it didn’t take them long to bring the fight to us. I thinned their numbers by four before the first reached me, and I killed the fifth through shoving my gun into the damned wolf’s mouth and firing. After that, it degraded as fights often did, to a mix of whatever I could use to make my next hit count—and hurt. They held the same general philosophy, and every bite they landed stoked my wolf’s fury, until his desire to shift and tear them to ribbons burned hot beneath my skin.

I considered it, but it was easier to fend them off as a human than as a wolf. For whatever reason, they wanted me alive, and my thinner, human skin made them fight with caution, whereas I was more than happy to ram my bleeding fist into their mouths and break their teeth, even if it meant breaking a few bones in the process.

Sometime between jamming my foot halfway down a wolf’s throat and doing my best to snap another one’s neck with my bare hands, one of their asshole friends got a hold of the back of my neck with their teeth. A single bite later, and a streak of pain down the length of my spine ushered in a silent darkness.

The crackle of flame dragged me out of the void and dumped me in a painful, twitching body. The back of my neck throbbed, but several points of heat and pressure on my chest did a damned good job of establishing I needed to pull myself back together and do something about my situation.