Dirty Blood Boxed Set, Includes, page 107
I bit him below his shoulder. Still, he fought against me. I clamped harder and my teeth broke flesh. The bitter taste of blood coated my mouth but all it did was enrage him further. He managed to get his rear paws underneath me and kicked me. My teeth ripped free, pulling fur and flesh with it and leaving a gaping hole where I’d bitten. I yelped and rolled to my feet. His agony echoed through my mind, stunning me.
It was such a warring emotion. I was connected to him, to all of them, and the alpha in me wanted only to protect. Their pain was my pain. Yet here I was being the one to cause it.
I howled. Dammit, it hurt.
George’s wave of concern increased. I tried sending him the message, I got this.
Nick scrambled to his feet and came at me again. But he was even slower than before and the pain distracted him. My teeth caught him around the throat. I applied pressure and then stopped when his vein pulsed against my teeth. If I bit now…
Nick growled. It reverberated in my open mouth. The bond flared with decision as he gave in to the darkness. There was no more Nick. Only thirst.
“You taste my blood or I’ll taste yours,” he said. The words were a growled whisper. A promise. If not now, then later.
I bit down.
In seconds, it was over. Nick’s heart tripped over a beat and then stopped.
Blood was everywhere. It ran in rivers down the sides of my jaw and dripped onto the ground. It coated my tongue. It matted Nick’s fur. Even after I spit and chewed grass, I tasted the bitter tang left behind.
At George’s instruction, Nick was removed from camp and some of the pack left to prepare a burial plot. I didn’t argue or add any instruction and no one approached me.
After the crowd dispersed, I slipped into the trees, grateful to be alone. I found clothes stashed behind a tree and sat, too numb to care about shifting back. Things like this—raw emotion—were always easier as a wolf.
The weight of the loss, of my part in it, pressed against the space between my ribs. My pack. He was my pack and I’d lost him. It needed to be done, but that didn’t take away from the loss. Forty-five.
Now there were forty-five.
I wasn’t sure how long I sat that way, but when George found me, I was still sitting in the same spot. At some point, I’d shifted back to two legs. I couldn’t even remember when I’d done it. His presence triggered me to look down. At least I had clothes on.
“What happened back there?” he asked, sitting next to me, cross-legged.
“Nick …” I wasn’t sure how to finish. “He just—he gave into it.” My voice broke. I stared into the trees in the direction they’d taken Nick.
“He didn’t shift back, did he?” I asked.
“No.”
“Alex told me once you only shift back if you have your humanity left.” I sniffled. The first tear fell.
George was quiet for a few moments, probably giving me time to collect myself. There weren’t enough hours left today for that to happen but I didn’t say that. A pair of wolves, Emma and Janie, approached. I could hear them through the bond, their concern and uncertainty at coming too close, but they wanted to help.
George turned to them. “Is Chris back yet?”
“No,” Emma said.
“Find him,” George told her. “And get Wes.”
The girls said they would and bounded off, relieved at having something useful to do. They were of the more humane variety of rescued hybrids. I didn’t mind their voices in my head, although their teenaged hormones sometimes got on my nerves. Janie didn’t like that her manicures were always ruined by shifting. Both of them stared at George a lot.
I continued to sit.
After a while, the sun dipped behind the trees, throwing shadows over everything. Through the bond, George searched my feelings, testing my mood. At first, I was too numb to give him much. When that gave way, I worried more than anything. Worry that it would happen again. That darkness would surface in someone else and I’d be forced to put them down. Or worse, that they’d hurt someone else—a human—before I could stop them.
Despite our remote location, it wasn’t more than a short run to the edges of town. And there were too many of them to keep tabs on all day, every day. Even with the bond, one could slip through my awareness so easily.
“They’re like a ticking bomb, George,” I said quietly. My voice sounded rough and scratchy after sitting so long in silence.
“I know. But they have us. You and me and Chris.”
Right now, that didn’t seem like enough. I nodded anyway.
“They still have their humanity,” he said, following my thoughts.
“As much as can be expected.”
“They’re going to be fine.”
I couldn’t help but be skeptical. Nick had hung on to his for a while too. Until he couldn’t anymore.
“You’re doing the best you can,” George said. “You’re doing more than CHAS would.”
That knowledge darkened my mood. CHAS. Steppe. If he knew how tenuous the hybrids’ hold on themselves was, he’d eradicate every one of them. He already wanted to. He just needed opportunity. I was determined not to give him one.
“Screw Steppe,” I muttered.
“Damn right,” said someone behind me.
“Chris,” I said, relieved to see him in a way that surprised me.
I’d come to rely on him these past few weeks. Our attachment at first had been largely due to the bond and then him protecting me against Kane’s strike team in the woods that day. Still, I would’ve expected more animosity on my part considering he’d tried to kill me before all that. But now, there was a solid friendship between us, and more than that. There was trust.
“How are you?” He sat in front of me and looked into my eyes, searching for whatever answer I might not give aloud.
“I’m … I’ll be okay,” I said finally, knowing it would be no use to lie. I swallowed. “There was a lot of blood.”
His eyes were full of understanding. “You did what you had to do,” he said.
A branch crunched nearby. All three of us jerked toward the sound, ready to leap up.
“Calm down. It’s me,” Wes said.
We all relaxed.
I’d been so involved in using the bond to communicate with George and Chris, I’d almost missed Wes. He was in human form, his auburn hair and browned skin blending with the trees so perfectly it was easy to overlook him in the gathering dusk. He watched me with tenderness and concern and even without a bond, I knew he sensed my distress.
He sat down on my other side, cupping my cheek with his hand and turning my face toward his. “You okay?” he asked.
“Define the word.”
He nodded, his expression hard where his eyes were soft. “Emma told me what happened. Are you hurt?”
“No, I’m fine.”
His eyes caught on my wrist. “You’re bleeding.”
I held it up, inspecting the place where Nick had bit me. It wasn’t deep, but it was healing slower since I’d shifted back. A thin line of dried blood coated the wound. “It looks worse than it is. It’s just a scratch,” I said.
He looked at Chris. “Is she in pain?”
I rolled my eyes. “I’m right here,” I said.
They both ignored me. Chris shared a look with George. They probed my mind, like little fingers massaging the answers out. Eventually, they turned back to Wes. “No,” Chris said. “She’s fine.”
Wes nodded. “Good. In that case, I’m going to make out with my girlfriend until she’s better. You guys staying or …?” He lifted a brow.
I couldn’t help but smile at the expression Chris wore, like he couldn’t figure out if Wes was serious.
“C’mon, dude,” George said. “Walk with me.” He rose and pulled Chris up with him.
“Nick—” I began.
“Is handled,” George said. “I’ll fill him in.”
“Much better,” Wes said when we were alone. He leaned in and kissed my temple.
I scooted closer as he brought one hand up to rest on my cheek. I found the other with my own and curled my fingers around his.
I didn’t feel much like making out, but Wes didn’t even try. Instead, he pressed light kisses to my forehead, cheek, neck … everywhere but my mouth. In between, he stroked my hair. “Everything’s going to be okay,” he whispered.
I leaned in, soaking up the comfort.
“Wes …” I wanted to thank him for being here, for always knowing the right thing to say, but my voice wouldn’t work without the accompaniment of tears.
“Let’s give it a minute,” he said. “Take a breath.”
I nodded against his shirt.
After several deep breaths, he smoothed my hair, pulled me into his lap, and planted a kiss on the edge of my nose. “Tell me what happened,” he said.
I gave him the full replay in broken sentences and stumbled-over words. But I managed to remain tear free. “If I hadn’t put him down, he would’ve come after me and he wouldn’t have stopped,” I finished.
“You did the right thing. You had to protect yourself. And the others. He could’ve hurt one of them too.”
“I know. But it’s still hard. I experience everything they do. Hunger, pain, all of it.”
“It would hurt more if you’d let it go and he’d done his damage elsewhere.”
He was right. That didn’t make the loss any easier. “I’m worried about the rest of them. If it happened once, it can happen again.”
Wes didn’t argue. I suspected he was thinking the same thing but didn’t want to voice it. “You did the right thing,” he assured me.
I leaned against him. I didn’t want to talk about it anymore. “Have you heard from Derek or Cord? How’s their trip going?”
Underneath me, his chest rose and fell with a heavy exhale. “The trip was a bust. The pack leader wouldn’t even see them.”
“Why not? I thought he was expecting them.”
“Changed his mind. I think he must’ve heard from someone we’d already been to see. Gotten a head’s up.”
“Head’s up? Why does it matter? He’s an ally, right?”
“They’re all distancing themselves from us. No one wants to be associated with this thing.”
Something about his tone made me pause. “What do you mean?”
“Fee said she talked to Edie during a break in today’s meeting. They’re calling for a summit. A vote. They want to dissolve the treaty.”
“We’ve known that was Steppe’s intention for a while,” I said. I frowned, realizing Wes spoke of it in present tense and not some far off possibility like I’d been treating it. “Does he actually have enough support to make it happen?”
“Maybe.”
I shivered involuntarily at the thought. Not for me or even the hybrids. But for people like Jack and Fee. Derek. Wes. Their entire life’s purpose was The Cause. Peace between the two races. Or at least, no more bloodshed between them. Steppe would erase all of that with a single vote, and just like that, they’d be fugitives. Hunted. The idea of Fee having to run for her life made me tremor with rage. I would do anything for her. For all of them.
It was a darker conversation than I wanted to have right now.
“How’s Vera?” I asked instead. Not much lighter of a topic.
“Unconscious, but stable. For now.”
The mental picture of her sleeping face, unwakeable, made me think of Alex. So much darkness. So much bad. It seemed there wasn’t a subject left for distractions.
“I want to go see her.”
“We’ll go tomorrow, first thing.”
I didn’t have it in me to argue for sooner. “First thing,” I repeated.
“Where do you want to sleep tonight?”
I thought of the tent in the center of camp. I’d slept there a few times to be closer to the pack but it wasn’t very comfortable even with the foam padding. Besides that, my mom always freaked out when she knew I stayed here. “You don’t know what sort of things are out there in the woods at night,” she’d say.
To which, I’d laugh and tell her I most certainly did know. I was one of them.
But if I could avoid making her stress and worry, even a little …
“Can you take me home?” I asked.
He kissed the side of my head. “Of course. Should we take the car or run?”
“The car. I’ve had enough of being a wolf for one day.”
Chapter Four
The beeping had embedded itself inside my brain. It mixed with the hum of voices that permeated my subconscious until the whole thing became some strange techno beat. I hated techno.
Alex was the same; stable yet unreachable. I’d checked in on him earlier and now I was sitting at Vera’s bedside in a room identical to Alex’s, right down to the matching beep of the equipment that read her vital signs. Her beeps came fewer and farther between than his. Not a good sign. And her cheeks were pale. Too pale. If I looked closely enough, I could see the purple veins that ran across her eyelids. Her chest barely rose and fell with each breath.
Her hair was disheveled, probably from being jostled when they’d brought her in. For some reason, that bothered me most. The Vera I knew would never have messy hair. Even in the weeks she’d spent inside her room at Fee’s, barely strong enough to walk from the bed to the couch, she’d always had her silver hair combed to perfection. I blinked and looked away, sad for so much more than the state of Vera’s hair.
Beep ... Beep.
The voices in my head hummed. Many of them were thinking of Nick, not necessarily sad. More like cautious. Concerned. They knew what’d happened without me explaining. They could sense their own darkness and the threat it represented. We all knew any one of them could be next. A lump settled somewhere between my throat and chest.
I pressed my fingers to my temples and squeezed.
“Tara?”
My head snapped up. “Mom.”
She hadn’t come in until late last night. I’d already been tucked in bed, halfway between asleep and pretending to be. I hadn’t wanted to tell her about Nick. I wasn’t ready to take on her stress over the whole thing. But this—Vera being sick—I could share this.
Something about the fear of losing someone you cared about to the soundtrack of a hospital computer monitor made it easy to put aside months—or even years—worth of differences. All I wanted was to hug my mother. And for her to hug me back.
She welcomed me with open arms. I slid into them and squeezed out all of my fear and uncertainty and stress. I squeezed for all of the noise in my head and responsibility on my shoulders. And for all of the things I couldn’t share with a mom who loved me in a way that meant she wanted no part in the life I’d chosen for myself.
My mother was a Hunter by blood, not lifestyle. A choice she’d made for herself when I’d been a baby and my life was threatened. For a long time, I’d assumed her refusal to acknowledge that side of her had to do with protecting me. Here I was knee-deep in Werewolf and Hunter politics with a peace-seeking group that had no problem using violence as a means to the end and she still wouldn’t budge. She’d rather stay home scrubbing ovens and countertops to counteract an anxiety that I suspected had more to do with losing my father all those years ago than seeing me in danger.
The longer I watched her with Wes, the more I became convinced of it. She didn’t hide her disapproval of him, nor was she very nice about it. But she’d let some things slip and I wasn’t entirely sure it was about Wes anymore so much as my future with someone non-human. When it came to me, my mother was a fan of boring.
Boring meant safe. And making safe decisions. I sucked at boring.
But she was my mother and I loved her.
She held me and smoothed my hair until I was ready to let go. When I pulled back and smiled at her, there were tears in her eyes.
“Mom, are you okay?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said, smiling through the glassy sheen. “Worried for Vera. And what you must be going through. I’m sorry I didn’t get here sooner. I had to wait on a last-minute customer. We’ve been swamped lately.”
“It’s fine,” I assured her. “I heard you come in late last night too. I wanted to let you rest.”
My mother owned a flower shop in downtown Frederick Falls. She’d opened it when I was little and always managed the shop and me all on her own. Despite all the secrets between us, I was proud of her for all she’d accomplished as a single mother.
“How is she?” she asked, frowning over my shoulder at Vera.
“Not good.” I swallowed hard. “They said there’s nothing else they can do for her.”
My mother squeezed my hand and walked slowly toward the bed. She rested her free hand on Vera’s forehead, gently smoothing the hair back.
“She looks so fragile,” she murmured.
“I wish they could figure out what’s wrong,” I said. “These are Hunter doctors. Shouldn’t that mean something?”
“Vera’s condition is tied to her ability, hon. When it comes down to it, magic and medicine aren’t the same.”
I sighed. I didn’t like that answer. “Have you heard from Grandma?” I asked.
I caught the hint of hesitation before she said, “Yes. She’s battling rush-hour traffic. She’ll be here as soon as she can.”
My mom and Grandma were a little like oil and water. It made me wish I’d known my grandpa, so it would make sense how one could produce the other.
“And the meetings?” I asked. “Did she say any more about what they decided to do with Olivia?” Or me? I didn’t add that part. My mom didn’t need to be reminded.
“No. She said it’s better left quiet for now.”
I nodded, unsurprised at her answer. Grandma didn’t exactly confide in my mother even when things weren’t hush-hush. Their relationship was one that worked best from long distances with minimal conversing. Confined spaces brought out the claws. I tried not to be around when that happened. Since Grandma had come to stay with us, that wasn’t always possible.
But with Olivia in custody and all of the meetings CHAS had called, she was rarely home lately. She stayed in an apartment in DC most weeknights so her commute wasn’t so bad. She’d offered to let me stay there too, so I could be close to the hospital, but I refused. I’d rather deal with traffic than take the chance of being away from the pack if something happened.
