“I'm not gonna fuck this up, I told ya,” he said in a growl.
Joseph turned his snout to Tony, their golden eyes locked on each other. “See that you don't. We won't get another opportunity like this one.” Their eyes held for two heartbeats more and Tony broke the stare, his status in the group firmly set at first. Not Alpha.
Not yet.
Joseph swept his eyes amongst the other Were soldiers and they gave him the subtle eye contact he required. The affirmation that let him know they were ready to battle the vampires.
On his scent command, they released their bodies from the shadows and stepped out into the open.
William knelt beside Julia, stifling his rising panic. The first thing that flooded his mind was her warning, nary a week old in which she had told him of her unease. He had listened, acted. But now he saw the alarm on her face and realized that the Were had chosen their time.
And it was now.
William brushed the hair that had come undone away from Julia's temple.
Tenderly.
He stood and readied himself for what the Were would bring.
The four that were with him spread and flanked his position. With a last look at Julia, he stepped in front of her. The look blazing in her eyes scorched a path in his mental imagery. What he had seen in them clenched his insides.
Trust.
Julia trusted him.
As he looked out and counted eleven of the enemy, he hoped that the sentiment was not misplaced.
Julia reclaimed tenuous control of her body and stood on shaky legs. She was fatigued by the run but was numb with fear. She backed away from the vampire that stood in front of her and her eyes met the Were that stood in front of them.
One in particular captured her attention.
The rapist.
Julia backed away until her butt collided with the Travertine façade of the building.
It was dark as they came, the streetlights illuminating the Were in patches of streetlight then disappearing as the dark embraced them again. Julia didn't take her eyes off the one.
He was the biggest. The most intense. She immediately understood that he wasn't the leader. Then she saw it. In his hand he held something.
A gun.
What? They were here to kill her? Julia was utterly confused. The two groups were not, however. As she held herself up against the wall they wordlessly charged each other, the Were making excited yips as their supple muscles clenched and bunched, readying to spring against the vampire.
Julia thought she'd just slip away while they fought. She couldn't be taken by the Were, her mind shuddered at the possibility. She began to feel her way along the building's façade, until her hand curved around the corner. She turned her face into an alley so dark she couldn't see where it ended, how high the sides were.
She stepped into the darkness, the war behind her raging in a clash of supernatural strength and will.
William advanced on the leader, swiping with talons that sprung from his fingertips in a blur of motion faster than anything he had mastered before. The pulse of his protection for Julia a thing that beat in his brain independently of his heart. The need to protect her was instinctive.
He saw in his periphery one of the runners fall, his gaping wound a hole in his body. Still he would heal, William thought as he leaned away from a strike and simultaneously punched a hole of his own in the chest of the nearest Were.
Fear gripped him. Julia was no longer a warm presence at his back. At the same time he saw one of the largest of the dogs break from the group and lope off to the side, a spider gait with fur, he pursued something else.
Someone else.
William turned in the direction of the lone Were just as Joseph used his half-wolf paws in a swinging arc, bringing them down across William's back, knocking him forward into a rough patch of cobblestone, revealed by newer asphalt. William’s hands bit into the unforgiving street as two more of the Were assailed him. They pummeled him into submission.
Before he lost consciousness, he tore the head from the neck of one and warm blood sprayed his face. He gulped without thinking, the grievous wounds inflicted by the Were repairing as he drank the arterial spray of the enemy. His death repairing the worst of William’s injuries as they occurred. A cycle of rejuvenation that was as old as time.
Joseph saw the vampire leader take the head off his third and howled. Before he could kill the vampire covered in blood at his feet Joseph's second growled, “Tony.”
It was enough. Joseph shot away from the vampire, his soldiers tearing the other vampire limb from limb in an hour when humanity slumbered.
While humans slept peacefully, proof of the battle ran in the city street, painting it with inky blood.
Julia ran alongside the wall, more tired than when she'd been running for exercise. The terror at being taken pouring an adrenaline nightmare in her body, her extremities numb with it.
She clipped her ankle on a pallet that was standing upright before she could see it and yelped softly.
She heard a noise behind her, the softest scrape and put on a burst of speed, her hand leaving the wall behind her.
Julia sprinted, the heat and lack of air in her lungs whistling a tune as she tore forward. Up ahead she could see a tall fence. Without a backward glance or thought she grabbed on to the smooth, circular metal fencing and jumped the first row, digging her shoe into the hole and climbing.
Julia didn't hesitate when the first piercing sting of something in her shoulder twanged and bounced.
When the second bit her in her upper thigh as she climbed, tears began to run down her face, the fence design in sharp contrast to the streetlamps that were beyond. The holes from the fence made shapes on her face, circles of light spearing her as she climbed.
She climbed slower now, she realized with soft horror.
Julia told her hands to grip the cold metal. Her foot missed the next hole and slipped.
The tears came harder now, dripping off her jaw and falling to the ground before her.
She stopped, seven feet above the ground, three more yet to finish. The razor wire at the top formed a spiral of hopelessness she couldn't overcome.
Julia's vision began to dim, the grayness of the night encroaching on her. She clung to the fence, her body no longer climbing, pressing herself against it, she clung.
As her legs folded beneath her and her fingertips slipped away she fell in a graceful arc to the concrete below.
To her death.
Julia didn't react when she heard the excited yelps and yips of the Were beneath her.
Jason dead.
William gone.
She was in the same position she had been when she started.
Sole protector.
Of herself.
Julia didn't land on the unforgiving concrete below, but in a steel cocoon, lined with fur and muscle. She looked up into eyes that shone like liquid gold. Her vision dimmed as she threw up her arm to defend herself in the last way she could before she faded into drug-induced oblivion.
Joseph stared at Julia for the moment of wakefulness she had before she sunk into the sleep of the drugged. His stony heart had squeezed at her weak attempt to defend herself against him. Did she not know that she could not? That there was no need? Joseph gave the signal to move out of the area even as he tightened his hold on the Rare One. They must exit. The blood drinkers would come en masse when the others didn't return with the Singer. Their margin for error this night was slim to none.
He ran, the light burden of the girl negligible.
Tony ran beside him, managing to carry out the task without a hitch.
Perhaps a first.
As he passed where they'd warred he saw the ash and blood lifting in the wind as a light rain began to fall. Cleansing the proof of their battle. One troubling thing remained.
A single vampire lay undisturbed, covered in his werebrother's blood.
Joseph faltered, debating on whether or not to return and fin
ish him. His experience whispered at the possibility that this one would be a problem in the future. Then he looked down at the sleeping girl in his arms. He clutched her tighter. Better to fight the devil that you know rather than the one you do not.
He re-hastened his gait, smoothly leaving the city behind for the mountains beyond. They would address that worry if it came.
For now, the Rare One would become part of the pack.
The den would be balanced once again.
Joseph would have smiled as a human.
As it were, he was not.
He lifted his snout to the sky and howled a baleful note.
It resonated in the city as they left the buildings of concrete behind, the others, a symphony in chorus with him.
They ran to the den.
To freedom from their warden.
The moon.
CHAPTER 21
underground Seattle
William’s abused body struggled to heal even as he debriefed Gabriel and Claire. Their eyes and bodies were dread-filled.
But not as much as he.
William was so full of self-recrimination he could hardly breathe. A thousand what if's swirled in his mind. Not the least of which was the elaborate plan the Were had executed. The instant he had stood down, allowed less runners for the daily exercise, the Were had pounced.
As it was, when the runners had been sent after they did not return, it had been only William they had found. Four runners, dead. Only two of the Were killed.
They had woefully underestimated the cunning of the Were. They thought them without the intelligence for strategy.
They had been quite wrong. And now, because of assumptions, the Were had Julia.
It had taken the blood of three humans to allow William’s recuperation. Even with that much, a gorge-worthy amount, William was still not at his peak.
Gabriel paced in front of him. “It does no good at this point to place blame. It is I that wished for Julia's exercise, for some semblance of normalcy.”
Claire placed a hand on his shoulder and he stopped the frenetic path he'd worn in the floor of William’s chamber. “None of us could have known this would occur,” she pleaded with him to see reason, to not blame himself. Easier said than done.
“Julia knew,” William said quietly. “She knew what was about. But she was so young in her ability, so new to trust...” he let that last trail off.
It was her newfound trust that cut deepest for William. What had it been? A mere week of them moving toward the end that he had envisioned for them all along. Now... she faced a situation that was not ordered but unprotected and unfit. A Rare One who would be treated without regard. Her abilities and genetic makeup used as a tool to further the dogs.
Of course, she had seen the vampires in a similar light. Not that William blamed her, yet... he had never been forthright enough about his feelings for her. He had thought it too soon to regale her with his regard. He'd only hinted at it. Now he wished he had been more bold. He startled Gabriel and Claire as he punched one fist into his open palm in anger, sitting up from his hunched position in the seat of his room.
Nausea and dizziness swirled around him but he hung on, he would not succumb. He would keep his focus on the rescue of the Singer.
Julia.
His future bride.
*
Julia
Julia woke up slowly, feeling like she'd been run in the washing machine on the spin cycle.
Like a hundred times.
She sat up and her head spun and throbbing pain latched into her temples immediately.
Julia felt like hell, her mouth a sandpaper legacy with a chaser of dragon breath. God, yuk. Julia slowly opened her eyes, taking in her surroundings. She was so disoriented she forgot where she was for those few seconds, the pain of her head and acute thirst the distractions that called her attention.
Not anymore.
The thing that greeted her as the memories of yesterday crashed into her consciousness like a train without a brake was a huge pane of glass. A forest beyond stretched without end. Huge Western Red Cedars stretched as far as the eye could see, filling her vision. The sweep of their emerald green branches caressing the ground with an unseen wind that lifted and moved them in a soundless dance.
Julia looked down at her body, the tracksuit was gone. Instead she wore a cami and pajama bottoms. In one of the most surreal moments of her life she saw there were sparkly unicorns covering the material in the palest blue and silver.
Huh. She was being held by werewolves that had dressed her in unicorn pajamas.
Irony-much.
A single tear escaped her eye and made a pathway down her face. The weirdness of her life was making her so claustrophobic she wanted to go back to sleep and never wake up.
A knock came at the door and Julia ripped the sheet from the bed up to her chin, turning to face the door at the same time.
A girl came through the entrance, maybe about her age but oh, so different.
She wasn't human.
How did Julia know? It was those spinning golden eyes, their slow rotations screaming other... other worldly.
Julia just stared. Rude, but at this point it didn't matter. She was tired, she felt like she'd been beaten she ached so bad. Instead, she waited quietly.
“Hey,” the girl said.
Julia sat there, saying nothing.
The girl fumed, finally sighing in a huff. “Listen, I know my brother put the he-man moves on ya. I tried to tell them it was the wrong way to do it.” She flung up her hands and started pacing the room. “He's such a pain in the ass! Alpha this, Alpha that. Well eff that,” she spun on her heel and faced Julia.
Julia leaned away.
She waffled her hand in front of Julia. “You don't need to worry about me,” she plunged her hand against her chest earnestly.
Right, Julia thought, doing an internal eye roll, that's what all the supernaturals said. Clearly, that'd worked out so well in the past.
She shoved her hand out for Julia to shake. “My name's Adriana. I already know who you are, of course,” she said rolling her eyes. Julia put a tentative hand out to shake and Adriana pumped it vigorously.
“This is awesome, finally they will quit talking about battles, acquisitions and all that happy horse shit. I'm so completely sick of all their chest beating bullshit I could puke.”
Julia did a slow blink, gradually taking back her hand.
She thought Cyn might have been reincarnated in Adriana. Or they were secret cousins or something. However, there was the matter of a small difference.
She didn't think Adriana had a filter. Ya know, that thing that pings when you've said too much or you're going to? No, she didn't have one of those. And... Julia was certain that Cyn hadn't been a werewolf.
Julia ignored all the really important questions and gulping she asked, “Are these...” she picked up some of the loose pajama material in her hand and met Adriana's now-brown eyes (that was a relief that the wolf inside her wasn't threatening to spring out any moment), “yours?”
Adriana nodded enthusiastically. “Yeah. You were in some hot-ass jogging get-up so I thought you should be in something more comfortable after being nailed with the juice.”
“The juice?”
“Yeah, that crap they stuck ya with that makes you conk out.” She looked at Julia for dawning comprehension. Seeing none she frowned, going on.
“Here's the deal. They pegged ya with the mega-tranquilizers to getcha from the vamps, right?”
Julia nodded, slightly dazed at the Force that was Adriana.
“So now you've got a colossal headache and you're so thirsty you could die, right?”
“Yes,” Julia nodded, her thirst roaring back to life at the mention of it.
“You can borrow those as long as ya want and I've got water.” From behind her back she brought a water bottle. She gave it to Julia who uncapped it and started to chug it down.
“Whoa, pony. No gulping. My bro
ther'll have my ass if you start doing the psychedelic yawn all over the place.”
Julia gave her wide eyes. Brother, personality squared on this girl.
Adriana chuckled, mimicking what must be her brother, “I need you to be as disarming as possible, Adriana. Do not do your normal...” she mimed choking herself and went on in his presumed voice, “energetic behavior. The Rare One needs time to transition...”
“Blah, effing blah.” She whipped her palm around dismissively. “You'll be fine, right?”
Was there another option?
Adriana stared at Julia, taking in her attire, the wild hair, God knows what else.
“Huh. Well... let's get you cleaned up, ya look like ass.”
Definitely like Cyn.
Tell me how you really feel, Julia thought, following Adriana as she pushed open the adjacent bathroom door.
*
Were
Lawrence, Tony and Joseph were in a heated debate. As usual, Tony was the one questioning each decision.
“I took the Rare One down, she was escaping!” Tony said, his teeth barred in his human form, the wolf peeking out around the edges.
Well goddamn... bring it, Joseph thought as the muscles of his neck and shoulders corded and bunched in response to the subtle posturing.
“Enough!” Lawrence roared. The Packmaster's face was etched with grim lines of fury.
He took in the Alpha and his first, seconds passing. The moment swelled awkwardly, a palpable pressure building, on the verge of bursting. He broke it, “Save it for the ritual. That is the time to fight for the Rare One. Right now,” he swung his direct look to Joseph, tense with the fighting instinct, “your sister is with Julia Caldwell?”
Joseph gave a terse nod, thinking of all that could mean. His sister was... willful.
Tony grunted.
They looked at him and he threw his muscular arms up in the air. “She is not the best at being welcoming. She is the most Alpha of all the females.” He had a look on his face like, clearly she is the least mild choice.
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