S. Yule - Lycan Vengeance

Rose had cried for days and never fully got over her friend’s death. She ended up delaying going to college—which only led to not going at all—and took bow and shooting lessons, self-defense classes, and buried herself in research about lycan folklore. At one time in her innocent life, she would have laughed at anyone who told her lycans were real, but now she knew only a monster could do what had been done to

Tammy—the other girls, it turned out, as well. Besides, hadn’t she seen one with her own eyes? She refused at that point to believe it had been a mere hallucination caused by the drug.

She’d been the only one of the girls to survive that night. The guilt over it had gnawed at her incessantly, day after day. At times she wished she’d died right along with Tammy and the others.

Why had she been spared? The familiar guilt still ate away at her at times, even though she’d finally accepted it for what it was—unexplainable. Obviously her life being spared when it should not have was just one of those things, like why someone who flipped a car to where it was an unrecognizable heap of mangled metal could walk away without so much as a scratch, and another would die from a simple fall in the backyard.

A year later she’d made her first kill—Russell—but not before she’d none too gently coaxed some information from him. She’d been sickened by his philosophy of life. He thought the world was his, thought he could do anything to anyone without consequences, actually believed it was his right to rape, torture, and hurt others. It hadn’t been all that hard to get everything out of him she wanted to know, as he’d bragged about most of it.

She hadn’t been all that surprised to learn about lycans’ speed, heightened senses, and ability to heal quickly, but there had been one thing that had thrown her off. The mating scent. All potential human mates had a unique scent that marked them as compatible to breed with lycans. A damned smell was the only reason

Tammy had been killed that night. All four of them had carried the scent that marked them as bait to all lycan, according to Russell. Unfortunately, the prick had refused to tell her about any lycan weaknesses or how to kill them, no matter how she’d tried to persuade him, but she’d figured that out all on her own.

Everything she’d researched pointed to silver, so she’d stuck a silver stake through Russell’s heart and watched him die, thinking even that had been too easy of a death after what he’d done to Tammy. While she hadn’t been able to muster enough emotion to regret ridding the world of such a monster, she’d had to shield herself from the guilt her heart caused her for killing another living thing.

After Russell, she’d devoted all of her time to getting rid of as many of the lycans as she could. She’d learned lots of tricks along the way—the deer urine to mask her scent was one of the better ones—but she didn’t forget that she’d never be the one with the upper hand in the battle.

Her breath hitched when the lycan she drew down on turned in her direction. Four scars that resembled claw marks ran from his forehead, over his eye, and stopped midway down his cheek. She had been made, and she had to take the shot now if she were to have even a slight chance of coming out of this alive. Her arm quivered from the effort of holding the string taut, and she released her fingers, letting the arrow whistle through the air toward its intended target. Her aim was true, but at the last second, the lycan twisted, and the arrow pierced its chest right beside the heart.

Her heart sank, then pounded furiously. She’d missed, and now she had to run for her life. She burst from the nest of dead branches she’d been using as cover and started in the direction she’d left her truck, when a bloodcurdling scream of rage echoed behind her. By her estimate, she was about four miles in, and the head start she had on the lycan would amount to little once the thing recovered from the shock of being shot and set after her. The adrenaline she’d tried to suppress only moments earlier was now her best friend.

She was in great shape, but as the deep snow and cold air took its toll, her strength waned. She’d been in tighter situations than this, and she’d get through this one—at least she thought she would, until the sound of dead branches crashed behind her as the lycan closed in. The fear that slithered up her spine gave pause to her doubts, making her wonder if she’d come out completely unscathed.

She focused on the line of trees marking her destination, trying hard not to think about the fact that she could practically feel the hot breath of her pursuer on her neck.

Within seconds, her truck came into view through the thick tree line, and relief poured through her, almost there. Maybe she would make it after all, but that thought was crushed, along with her body, when she was tackled from behind. The sheer weight of the beast knocked what little breath she had left from her lungs as she hit the ground hard. She’d assumed one day she’d die by the hands of a lycan. She just hoped that that day wasn’t today.

Knox had been a hunter for far too long to not realize he was being followed again. He’d been tailed for around a month now, but had to admit that whoever his stalker was had a few tricks up his sleeve. He’d gotten close a few times to discovering who hunted him, but he’d always been a second too late to come face-to-face with his pursuer.

While the deer urine had fooled him for about a second, he couldn’t discount the cleverness of the trick, as it would probably work well in masking one’s scent from most lycans, especially the young rogues he helped keep in check. Being one of the few ancients left in a dwindling race, the wool was not so easily pulled over his eyes.

He had killed more rogues in his time than he cared to remember, and hated the impact the loss had on the lycans, but there was no other option for those who refused to reform. The rogues enjoyed appalling and unacceptable behavior, which included killing potential mates. When he ran across a rogue who was willing to reform—no matter how rare the instance—it made all the sacrifices, the pain, the loneliness worth it.

Anything he had to do to help save his race was worth the steep price it cost him, even if each rogue he’d killed who’d refused to obey ancient laws claimed a piece of his soul. He didn’t enjoy executing anyone, even those who deserved it, but it was a necessary job that had to be done. While he knew other lycans, ancient and younger, who were not rogue played a part in the battle to save his species, sometimes he felt as if he were the only one. Now am I being a whiny bitch or what?

Ancient lycan law demanded the protection of all potential mates. Potential mates were becoming a rare find, and it was paramount to the survival of the lycans to protect them. Unfortunately, rogues didn’t have the same views. They thought potential mates were fair game to all lycans, and any of those who carried the main scent who happened into their paths usually ended up getting kidnapped, tortured, or raped, or any combination of all three.

The majority of those who went rogue were young pups who’d been born of ill-treated women and who’d just come into manhood, drunk off their newly heightened senses and power. That was problem number two:

There weren’t enough ancients to keep track of all the new pups born. Thus the pups weren’t taught the importance of potential mates to the lycan population. Although, he doubted that knowledge would be enough to stop all lycans from going rogue.

Some of the ancients had formed a place called Sanctuary in northern Michigan, but he had never visited the place. He preferred to work alone, and had done so most of his life, but Sanctuary was becoming an integral part of the lycans’ existence. He had heard rumors of other states and countries setting up sanctuaries as well.

It would take time to get the reform encampments established and to discreetly get word out of their locations. The past several months, he’d become accustomed to the idea of Sanctuary and was happy there would finally be another way to keep track of rogues who were willing to reform. Up to this point in time, those who hunted the rogues had to rely on their reformants’ word and check on them as often as possible.

This made the hunters probation officers as well, and babysitting took valuable time away from threading out other savable rogues from the hopeless ones.

Sanctuary provided more than a shelter and educational tools for rogues. It provided a necessary lifting of burden off the ancients out in the field. The fact that he no longer had to keep tabs on those who had personally promised him they would change their ways was a huge relief. It had become a nearly impossible task, and had started weighing heavily on him and the other hunters.

A slight thunk and whistle alerted him that trouble was coming, and innate instinct had him jumping to the side. Unfortunately, he hadn’t reacted quick enough to avoid the arrow altogether, as it embedded in his chest just a few inches from his heart. And, thus the third problem with rogues: their careless actions were starting to alert humans to their existence.

He screamed out in fury and gripped the arrow to yank it out. Suddenly, weakness slithered through him.

Only one thing could cause him that kind of sudden weakness. The damned shaft of the arrow was iron, and touching it immediately began draining his strength. Humans figuring out lycans existed was one thing, but if they’d found out that iron was their weakness—he didn’t even want to think about the consequences of that one.