Warner was not completely lost.
His awareness and control had come back to him in waves.
He hadn’t wanted it. He’d surrendered to the thing inside of him and perhaps that was what it had required all along.
His complete and total surrender.
Although, he was different.
He was not the same Warner who’d loped off into the forest, but nor was he only the Dark Champion.
He was more.
He was less.
And there was something else inside his body with him. Something other. It seemed more malignant somehow than this other skin her wore, and it seemed that only the Dark Champion could keep it contained and only when he surrendered.
Warner knew instinctively it was a zero-sum game and he was quickly running out of moves.
Luckily, he’d discovered why the pack in the northern territory hadn’t wanted Woolven interference.
They’d become the thing he was hunting.
All of them.
The entire pack had been turned.
He’d been leading them back into Woolven Territory. So when he slaughtered them all there would be no interference from the council or anyone else.
Except he sensed other presences in the forest.
He felt Mari.
She should’ve gone back to Aphelion by now, but he’d underestimated her.
Again.
She was here and he knew she was here for him.
Her fear crawled up his back like a spider and he’d be goddessdamned before he’d led any creature on this earth make his Mari feel that way.
He didn’t trust himself around her, but he couldn’t let this threat to her go unanswered. Warner caught another scent and it was as he suspected: Lenore.
The Dark Champion stirred.
He didn’t like that Mari was under threat either.
She belonged to him.
Warner didn’t stop to think about what that meant. Only that he had to get to her. Everything inside of him burned to protect her.
And to destroy whatever menaced her.
He ran hard, covering a distance at a speed previously unknown to human and supe alike.
When he emerged into the clearing and saw that Mari was under threat, rage boiled the blood in his veins.
And he’d walked into the pack’s trap.
But it didn’t matter.
Not to him, anyway.
They could rip and tear at him all they liked and maybe he’d bleed, but they’d never be able to take him down.
Everything in him spoiled for a fight. His teeth literally ached to rip and tear. To devour. His claws itched to be buried deep in infected flesh.
“He comes,” the interloper said.
Mari’s eyes widened in horror and Warner didn’t know if it was because of his new form, or if it was because of the group of infected that had started emerging from the forest to surround them.
Maybe a little of both.
Lenore pulled her guns and Warner hoped that the ammo she’d made from his saliva was would protect them.
But if he was being honest, he didn’t see how Lenore was going to survive this.
He wanted her to, but the Dark Champion wouldn’t allow him to prioritize her safety over the destruction of the beasts that surrounded them.
Warner had thought his transformation complete. He didn’t realize the darkness could go deeper.
Somehow, it had.
The Dark Champion was distracted by Mari.
Her very presence agitated him in a way that Warner didn’t think he could fight. He wanted to sink his teeth deep in her throat.
Not to hurt her, but to claim her.
Change her.
But Warner knew his bite to be venomous. He’d kill her.
Only that’s what the darkness wanted. To end her so he didn’t have to fear her destruction.
She will be reborn from death.
She will rise Wendigo.
Except that was only the lie the beast told him to gain compliance.
To get him to trundle along down the primrose path without a fight.
Except Warner couldn’t fight. He’d already surrendered to this thing. Already decided there was no choice.
He couldn’t let Mari be a casualty of this war.
Of Peter Breslin and all the evil he’d loosed on the world.
“You’ve served your purpose,” the infected wolf said. “Run, run away to Woolven lands and warn the rest of them what’s coming. We’re going to take down your champion.”
Mari lifted her chin, her eyes blazing red. “No, you won’t. And we won’t run from you.”
Red.
Her eyes were red.
He’d already tainted her.
Lenore raised her gun and fired, the bullet grazing the shoulder of the wolf who stood before them.
The flesh sizzled and crackled where the projectile entered him, but he didn’t seem to feel any pain. He only smiled.
Lenore wasn’t dissuaded in the least. She emptied the clip into his chest.
“Now I know what you say about Peter is a lie. You didn’t take him down with these little pins.” He laughed.
“No. I dissolved his bones from the inside out. And these will make short work of you in a moment.”
“Not before I rend your meat from your bones.”
He leaped at her, but Lenore saw it coming and had already dropped into a roll that positioned her out of the way of his strike.
“This is going to be fun,” he said and gave the signal.
The rest of the beasts began to advance, but they avoided Warner. He knew what they were doing.
They were trying to distract him with Lenore and Mari so they could attack him as one, as if their greater numbers gave them any kind of advantage.
They’d soon learn.
He waited, watching their advance with cool indifference.
“You can’t tell me you’re going to let us have them. Your scent is all over the weak one,” one of them said with a laugh.
That was when he launched himself at the wolf and tore his head right from his body.
And he stripped the bones clean within seconds. There was no chance for him to regenerate.
The other wolves saw this but they were still coming. He didn’t understand why they’d do that.
They weren’t stupid.
But maybe he was.
He’d never stopped to think they might have a reason for luring him there. Might have some agenda. He couldn’t think what it could be and the harder he tried, the more disjointed his thoughts became.
Warner knew whatever it was, it couldn’t be good.
The Dark Champion needed Mari.
Warner looked for her, but couldn’t see her. Or Lenore.
And suddenly, the sound of helicopters roared against his ears. He looked up to see a swarm of hunters rappelling down into the battle. They were all dressed in black and carried the latest in werewolf killing technology.
Too bad it wouldn’t do shit.
At least not long term.
They slaughtered the infected pack, taking heads and hearts. He watched in horror as the pack began to devour their own. Even as they were beheaded in the process. Other wolves would come along and restart the process.
Warner’s guts twisted. An awful connection made itself known in his head, but he couldn’t quite consider it.
A giant containment unit dropped from the sky, still attached to the cables and four helicopters hovered.
Of course, they would try to take them alive. To study them.
Oh Goddess.
He watched as what was left of the pack went willingly and one particularly shitty human began to shovel the remains into the cage with them.
Warner knew that when the wolves regenerated, they’d decimate the hunters, but these dumb bastards weren’t really his concern at the moment.
His super hearing could hear what Lenore what was saying through the roar of the helicopters if he concentrated.
Strange scents drifted his way. Lies had a particular scent and he knew that they weren’t coming from Lenore.
“What are you doing, Connor? This wasn’t what we agreed on.”
“It’s what the high council wants.”
“Goddamn it. When are they going to fucking learn?” Lenore scrubbed a hand over her face.
“Well, you’d have better luck if you weren’t such a fur fucker, wouldn’t you?” Connor sneered.
“Eat the entirety of my ass, Connor.” Lenore turned to walk away from him, but he grabbed her arm.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
“You want to keep that hand?” Lenore stared at him and jerked her arm away.
“I don’t give a shit if you’re Diana Breslin’s daughter.”
“The only part about who I am that matters is that since I am such a fur fucker, as you say, I’ll chew your goddamn head from your body if you touch me again.”
He laughed. “Fair enough. Where is the Champion? We need him too.”
“That wasn’t part of the deal.”
“Deal? Lenore, you’re a hunter. You know how this works. He’s a danger to humans as well. Maybe more so than this pack. The witches say he can bring them back.”
“Who?”
“The wolves we’ve killed.”
Stupid fucks. They’d regenerate on their own.
Except he thought about the first of the infected he’d consumed. He thought about the evil. He thought about the thoughts in his head.
And the devastation it would wreak if Peter Breslin were somehow reborn.
That connection in his brain, the one he couldn’t quite consider, couldn’t quite bring to the forefront of his mind… it erupted in all of its foul glory.
Warner knew with a certainty now that the strange voice in his head, the one that was not the Dark Champion, it was Peter.
The hunter turned werewolf apocalypse lived inside of him.
And soon, he would want out.
Warner knew that somehow, the answer was Mari.
The thing inside of him cringed away from even the thought of her.
When he’d been thinking about marking her, and his thoughts had turned to the darker aspects, it had all been Peter trying to trick him into devouring his would-be destructor.
Warner crept forward, trying to gain Lenore’s attention.
The helicopters dropped another cage and that’s when Warner knew.
Lenore had been betrayed.
And so had the world.
He watched as a tranq dart hit Lenore’s neck from behind, and he felt the prick in his own neck.
He went down hard, still able to see and hear, but he couldn’t move.
For all of his superpowers, he guessed that the powers that be must be fallible if they hadn’t counted on hunters with something as simple and rudimentary as a tranquilizer dart. Or maybe they thought he’d be better prepared.
They dragged him into the cage with Lenore.
The members of the infected pack went batshit at his nearness, trying to rip and tear into him.
Visions of them tearing his body apart to get at the one inside of him, to free him, assaulted him.
Warner knew that’s exactly what was going to happen if they could reach him.
Mari. I need you.
The one called Connor spoke. “You love them so much, see how you feel about it when this one wakes up ravenous for flesh and you’re all he’s got to eat.” He kicked at the cage.
Yeah, he supposed they would see, wouldn’t they?
He and this Connor would have a reckoning when this was over.
If Lenore didn’t get to him first.
He thought of Mari again. Of her sweet softness, of her voice, her touch.
And of the red ring around her eyes.
He called her to him with his mind, using the mating bond and all the power of the Dark Champion, all the while hoping against hope he wasn’t wrong.
That he wasn’t luring her to her death, her true death and the Wendigohe now believed was inside of her would end this nightmare.
He realized with a sudden awful clarity that he didn’t want Arianna. She was long dead and Mari was here. Mari had stood by him, she’d come when he hadn’t even know he’d needed her. She was loyal and brave, so much stronger than anyone had given her credit for.
Mari was the one.