“Thank you? I had it handled. I didn’t need you pulling any misguided heroic stunts.”
While we talked, Victor’s wolf form receded, leaving a human male behind. His transformation wasn’t as clean or quick as Brax’s. The snap and crack of bones as his body shifted and changed, his paws becoming hands and his spine twisting as it became a human’s made me cringe. It looked and sounded painful.
Brax gave him a lethal glance. I wouldn’t want to be Victor once his alpha got hold of him. He probably wouldn’t survive the night if Brax’s quiet rage was any indication.
My eyes shot to the figure by the tree. The shadows were empty.
“Where’d he go?” I asked.
Brax didn’t respond, striding forward to grab and jerk Victor up by his shoulder.
I glanced around, turning in circles. No sign of the draugr lurked amid the field of headstones. Why would he run off when his controller was in trouble?
Maybe he didn’t recognize Victor while he was in wolf form. I certainly hadn’t.
Brax had Victor by the throat and had hauled him close.
“What have you done?” Brax growled.
“Brax.” This was making me uneasy. The draugr shouldn’t have disappeared like that.
“You’ve killed so many and your actions may have started another war.”
His words were accompanied by another bone rattling shake. Victor’s face was turning purple. Brax’s grip was so tight he couldn’t breathe let alone speak.
“Brax.”
I’d feel a lot better if we got out of here. A bad feeling was starting to creep along my skin. I’d learned to pay attention to that feeling. Bad things always ensued when I didn’t.
“This isn’t our way. You challenge for Alpha. You don’t sneak around like a thief in the night, like the basest of cowards.”
“Brax,” I yelled. He turned on me, the wolf overlaying his face for just a moment. “That’s enough. Either kill him or bring him with us, but we need to go. The draugr is still around, and we’re not prepared to fight him.”
The wolf stared out of his eyes, the icy blue of his iris holding an alien intelligence. Not beastlike but definitely not subject to human mores and values. He could kill me as easy as look at me. It wouldn’t bother him a bit, even if I had saved him moments before. I wasn’t pack and therefore he owed me none of the courtesy and affection they were afforded.
I waited, refusing to drop my eyes. It was a definite challenge to his authority, but I was tired of playing games. If he didn’t come and come now, I was leaving him behind. He could face the draugr on his own.
The wolf receded, leaving a pissed Brax glaring at me. He released Victor and shoved him in front of him. I released my breath on a shaky exhale. For all my bravado, every muscle in my body had been tensed to flee if Brax had made good on the promise of violence living in his eyes.
Victor coughed and gasped for breath. His shoulders shook. Was he crying? No. A rough chuckle reached my ears. He was laughing.
I took a step back. It was never good when the bad guy gave an evil villain laugh.
Brax stepped forward.
Victor kept his head down, shielding his face. “You should have killed me when you had the chance.”
I took another step back. I agreed with him.
Victor lifted his head and turned it to the side. The draugr stepped out of the shadows, his eyes staring blindly at our trio.
“Jackson Miller, you don’t have to listen to anything he says,” I said.
This wasn’t good. This was very, very bad.
I was beginning to think I should have listened to Brax and kept running.
Brax stepped forward grabbing for Victor and missing when the other wolf ducked away.
