The missing factor? My blood.
A fact I’d discovered only when I’d given a bag full to my friend George after he’d become infected with the serum during that final showdown with my cousin, Miles. I’d been terrified it wouldn’t work and I’d lose him like we’d lost so many others once Miles injected them. But a bag of Tara Godfrey blood was just what the doctor ordered.
In no time, George was well again, back from the brink of death. He was strong and fast and, most of all, happy. He was, quite possibly, the most content Werewolf I’d ever met. And then my blood had really kicked in and we’d bonded.
As in, thoughts shared, emotions passed between us, completely aware of the other’s thoughts: bonded. It had scared the crap out of me. And then it put a huge damper on my love life. I might’ve figured it all out from there, found a way to balance and learn to live with it, but then Olivia had come along. Mother to Miles. Ex-lover to Leo, my also crazy, also dead, uncle. My dad’s side of the family tree was a little nutso.
Olivia had wielded a blood bond strong enough to lead an entire pack of hybrids against me. Then through a showdown and defeat, I’d cured the entire dying pack through injections of my blood, and thus inherited the bond.
Fifty shades of voices, my best friend Cambria called it. My head had never felt so full of thoughts. Eat your heart out, Albert Einstein. So, I was more surprised than anyone at how much I’d hated the void left behind when the bond vanished. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d heard another thought inside my head besides my own. I missed it. The emptiness made life seem less urgent. Like everything happened through slow-motion.
Nearby, the sleeping man shifted and snorted before settling again. I raised a brow but Gordon wasn’t in the explaining mood. He barely glanced over before returning to the topic at hand.
“I know all about your bond with them,” Gordon said. “It’s a handy tool. And, to be frank, a mysterious one. I’ve spent months working with the best researchers trying to understand it, to develop it.”
“Develop it?” I repeated, a nervous swirl in my stomach. “For what?”
“To take it for myself, of course.”
He paused. I had a feeling he wanted some sort of response, maybe to gauge my reaction to his admission. If he was expecting surprise, he was mistaken. A need for power was nothing new for the enemies I’d faced. A smug smile tugged at my lips at the thought of his failure. Clearly I was Plan B. And since we were having this conversation at all, Plan A hadn’t worked out.
Given all of that, I decided on sarcasm. “How’s that working out for you?”
“Getting closer,” he said quietly, his eyes gleamed where they burned into mine. “I had it working for a moment there but then George’s remaining connection to you severed what little hold I could gain.”
“Wait, you tried bonding ... with me?” I crossed my arms. “I think I’d know if you were in my head.”
His smile tilted into something ominous. “Precisely. You know I’m right, because you’ve already heard me.”
I stared back at him, utterly confused as he went on.
“In fact, I even warned you before you came to the warehouse that night. Look around you. This building you’re being kept inside, it’s not a deep, dark hiding place somewhere off the grid. We’re right where no one expects us. Right in plain sight.”
I didn’t need to follow the sweep of his arms to see that he was right. I was sitting in an infirmary of sorts, but it was large and state of the art with its lab equipment and high-tech machines lining the counters across the room.
“Where are we?” I asked, suspicious I already knew.
“We’re in DC. In CHAS headquarters. Well, the lab and offices underneath but still. There’s a public entrance. We’re easily accessible. I tried to tell you.”
My eyes narrowed as I tried to understand what he could mean—and then the memory returned and his words wormed their way into a place of horrific understanding. But Gordon didn’t wait for me to process it; he enjoyed the shock far too much. He leaned in, his smile electric as he added, “The best place to hide is in place sight.”
I let out a cry but it sounded like a muffled choking.
“Shall I get you some water?” Gordon asked.
I glared at him. “That was your voice in my ... All that time I thought I could hear—” I broke off, unwilling to share it out loud. Especially with him. My cheeks burned—with anger and humiliation. I thought I’d bonded with Alex. And it had been Gordon.
A wolf in sheep’s clothing, I’d heard just before he’d grabbed me. He’d been telling me it was him, warning me of the trap all along. And I hadn’t understood.
“Relax. Your attachment to George kept shoving me out. I didn’t get much. It was sort of a one-way radio. I’ve been working for weeks to get it back but I can’t quite seem to achieve it, not alone at least. Which is why I need to try it again, this time with your participation.”
I snorted. “I would think your researchers would have filled you in on the obvious by now. First rule of bonding: you have to be a wolf.”
“Lucky for me, carrying the gene and taking the animal’s true form are two different things. These days, I can have one without the other. In fact, I already do.”
“Are you trying to tell me you’re a Werewolf?” I asked, disbelief coating my words.
“I’m telling you I carry the necessary DNA structure that allows me the mental capacity to handle something like a bond.”
I shook my head, struggling to keep up. “How?” I asked.
But he didn’t answer. He leaned away, hands stuffed into his pockets, his voice as matter-of-fact as if he were lecturing to a classroom of eager students. “The wolf gene must be present in order for the bond to happen. On both sides. But my cells are considered weak compared to yours, for instance. I’ll need a strong host to connect with—and to show me the ropes.” His grin reminded me of a crocodile’s.
My stomach flipped and I was sincerely glad it was already empty. “You can’t just take it or shove your way in. And if you think I’ll just hand my mind over, you’re wrong,” I began.
“No, it has to be freely given. Olivia explained all of that.”
“Olivia? You’re working ... with her?” The pounding in my temples intensified. Maybe I’d been in here too long. I didn’t understand a single thing about my world any more.
“Working is a strong word. She pushed a little hard and we’ve had to offer her a respite. See for yourself,” he said, pulling back the curtain separating my bed from the next.
In the adjacent bed, wrapped securely in a pile of blankets and sheets, eyes closed, breathing even, Olivia slept.
Wires protruded from the edges of the linens, trailing up to the screens and machines parked beside her, silently reporting her vitals. Her face was barely visible under the sheet, but even from here I could see the dark circles ringing her sockets like bull’s eye bruises. Her hand was curled around the blanket, clutching it tightly as if, even asleep, a chill seeped in. She’d lost weight so that her already slender fingers were thin and bony. Frail.
She was clearly unwell. And being used for something other than justice or judicial trials for her crimes—which is what the rest of the Hunter world assumed would happen once she’d been caught all those weeks ago. Olivia had, along with her deceased son—my cousin Miles—made and almost killed an entire pack of hybrid Hunter-Werewolves. Why wasn’t she in prison? And conscious?
“What did you do to her?” I asked.
“Me? Nothing,” Gordon said. But his voice was deceivingly light with the lie. “Not for lack of trying, though.”
Olivia rolled over and muttered unintelligible words. Her eyes never opened but her shoulders thrashed violently several times—hard enough to wake a normal person—and I knew she was in a deeper sleep than just a good night’s rest. Along with the monitor wires, an IV line attached to a clear bag of fluid disappeared underneath the blankets. Whatever Gordon was doing t
o her was taking a serious toll. Possibly something was being fed to her—like my own dinnertime cocktails.
Olivia shifted again and the blanket shifted. Her arm fell loosely open against her side, revealing track marks left by multiple needles along her forearm. The scars left a nasty trail from just above her wrist all the way up to the crook in her elbow where I spotted the IV line taped in place. For a moment, I wondered if Gordon was simply keeping her under like he’d done with me. Maybe the tracks on her arm were evidence the IV had been moved several times to accommodate a blown vein or some discomfort. But then I noticed her sallow complexion and stark-blue veins, and I knew.
Blood. Gordon was taking her blood.
“You said she’s working with you?” I asked, still too muddled from the tranquilizer to read between the lines of whatever this was.
“Yes, until she collapsed two days ago.” His features hardened. “Not that it’s done any good. I still don’t have the bond.”
I stared at Olivia with a growing sense of dread. Solitary confinement, drugs, heartache—all of it paled in comparison to what Gordon had done to Olivia. There was something other about her lying there unaware of reality. Something horrific in the way I could sense her brokenness even without her eyes open. I pictured myself lying there: unconscious, sick, mentally absent. And I shivered at the thought of putting up a fight—only to end up like her in the end.
“If I give it to you—my blood, the bond—what are you going to do with it?” I asked quietly. I suspected I already knew the answer, but I didn’t trust my intuition any longer.
“To do what you won’t,” he said with a shrug, as if the reason were so obvious. When I didn’t reply, he went on, “To rid us of the monsters.”
“The monsters are among us,” I mumbled.
“What?” His tone changed to something with a sharper edge.
I shook free of the memory tugging at me. “Something my Aunt Vera said before she ... never mind. What do you want from me?”
Steppe’s smile was sugar and acid and reminded me of Lindsey Lohan from Mean Girls. In a suit. Possibly wearing the same amount of concealer. “I want your blood. And your mind. And I want you to give both willingly.”
Revulsion rocked through me and I shut my eyes against the wave. “And if I say no?”
“That would be unwise.”
“If I say no?” I repeated through clenched teeth, summoning determination I didn’t feel.
Steppe’s smile remained intact as he explained, “The rest of your pack dies. One by one. But not until I make sure your bond is strong enough to feel every splice into their flesh and every drop of blood as they bleed out on my dirty floor.”
He’d said “the rest” as if he’d already done it to several. But I hadn’t felt anything during my weeks alone.
“You wouldn’t.” I crossed my arms, fully aware that, by calling his bluff, I might’ve just sealed the fate of an undeserving pack member. I stuck my chin out, refusing to back down but knowing I lacked the strength to see it through.
Steppe’s chin jutted to match mine and he bent down so we were eye to eye. “I already have,” he said.
My mouth opened but no sound came. He’d killed them? When? Which ones? My pulse raced while I struggled to accept it.
Steppe’s nose wrinkled and I knew he’d finally caught a whiff of my skin, my breath. He was close enough to reach out and touch. I could see the pulse jumping steadily against the vein in his throat. Suddenly, I wished it would stop. Not pause, but completely halt in its attempt to shove this man’s life force through his body. I wanted to end him here and now. And walk out while the rest of this place crumbled behind me.
The warped disgust that showed on my face was apparently taken for concession. Steppe pulled back and straightened, a satisfied set to his shoulders. “You need to detox before the transfer can take place. And we need to run some tests. My men will take you to your new quarters while the doctor prepares.” He walked to the sleeping man still hunched over the cot beside mine and shoved him.
The man slipped over the edge of the bed, barley catching himself before he tumbled out of his rolling chair. The clipboard went flying, sliding along until it hit the wall and stopped. “Sandefur, get up,” Steppe said.
Sandefur? I stared as the sandy-haired man righted his glasses and shoved to his feet. His eyes were wide as he took in the sight of me and then looked back at Steppe, his hands shaking.
“Sir,” he said.
“Take her to the prepared room for monitoring and healing,” Steppe said. “And then come find me to go over the numbers on the recording we sent.”
“Yes, sir,” Mr. Sandefur mumbled. He bent over to retrieve his clipboard and smoothed his hair.
Gordon turned to me. “I’ll see you in a few days.”
My argument never made it to my lips before Gordon walked out.
It’s official, I thought. I’m screwed.
“Let’s go.” Mr. Sandefur’s tone sounded much more confident now that Steppe was gone. He waited with a tight frown while I climbed to my feet.
“You’re Logan’s dad,” I said. He grunted. “I’m Tara, I know your son.”
“I know exactly who you are,” he snapped.
“Then you know I’m not a bad person or that—”
“Please shut up,” he said, sounding desperate rather than rude.
“Why are you helping him?” I pressed. “Logan is in danger because of your vote.”
His expression flashed from irritated to painfully defensive. “I don’t have to explain my choices to a kid. Now, move.”
He stalked off, and I followed him slowly, taking in everything as we passed through the lab to the exit. Counters full of equipment and, closer to the door, a wall lined with metal cages like I’d seen in that warehouse.
My knees wobbled, but when I looked, they were empty. On the opposite wall was a row of bed with white fitted sheets. They were all empty and unused. I wondered why he had so many of them—and thought again about the voice I’d heard yelling after the explosion. The gunshots. Was Alex here? Wes? Where were the others? Had they used any of these beds before me?
We passed through a set of automatic doors into a concrete hallway and two armed guards fell in behind us. I had no idea what Steppe meant by “new quarters” but I was banking that it had to be better than my living quarters up until now. Especially since, as far as he knew, I’d just told him what he wanted to hear. I was holding out for something with running water. I didn’t see any other option, what with the guns currently pointed at my back. When Mr. Sandefur turned right, I went willingly.
A familiar face loomed up ahead and I hesitated. He’d been the only one I’d recognized during my mealtime visits. Not that the familiarity had been a comfort. He’d remained as mean as ever through all of our interactions, limited as they were.
“Faster,” Mr. Lexington snapped, waiting for us with a glower. “We don’t want her out here in the open for longer than necessary.” He began walking just ahead of Mr. Sandefur, leading the way down the chilly hall.
My head pounded anew as I forced my feet one in front of the other and left the clinic behind. I wished briefly for a meal laced with morphine, anything to knock this headache out, but as we rounded the next corner, the desire vanished. I wanted my wits. No matter how much discomfort it caused.
During my weeks inside my concrete cell, I’d concocted all sorts of images of what the rest of my prison might look like. I’d expected stone walls carved from caves, dirty floors, no windows. Basically, some version of a CHAS hideout placed deeply off the map, filed away under some nefarious-yet-vague corporation.
This was not that.
This was exactly what Gordon had said. Shiny linoleum underfoot. Well-lit tiled ceilings. On either side, nondescript doors all locked tight against nosy employees without proper clearance. I imagined that farther down, around the bend, probably industrial-strength walls gave way to public waiting areas. A reception desk with
a side entrance for deliveries. Maybe even a conference room to hold Steppe’s board meetings when he couldn’t make it uptown during rush hour. The whole thing looked completely corporate America—all except for the giant gaping hole where a wall should’ve been across the hall from my new room.
I stopped and stared at the rubble before me. Vaguely, like a smokescreen over a dream, I remembered the boom I’d heard before. “What happened?”
One of the goons at my elbow needled me forward. “Arma-freaking-geddon happened,” he muttered.
“Who did it?” I asked, too afraid to hope.
The other guard smirked. “You,” he said.
I had no idea what that meant, but he didn’t offer anything more. Mr. Lexington muttered an oath laced with threats if the guards didn’t shut their mouths so I left it alone. Instead, I forced my feet to shuffle forward in the direction the man prodded.
The room was clean but almost as sparse as the last. There was nothing but a sink and toilet on the far wall. As a bonus, an old plastic lawn chair sat tucked up against a scarred desk with only a single sheet of paper and pen. A twin bed—nothing more than a mattress and box spring had been shoved into the corner. That was it. Nothing sharp. No mirror. Probably a good thing.
I took a step inside. The cheap, cold tile on the floor made the thin blanket and lumpy mattress look like a haven. At least until the door swung shut behind me. Then it was more a prison than a getaway.
As the lock turned over, I wondered what could’ve happened that would cause an entire wall and doorway to collapse right across the hall from me. The answer was the same one I’d thought of when I’d asked myself what would happen if Gordon Steppe and I blood bonded: nothing good.
Chapter Three
The next morning, I’d just finished pulling the thin layer of cotton over my head when Mr. Lexington poked his head inside my room. I flipped my freshly washed hair and raised my brow.
“You have a visitor,” he said.
I’d barely opened my mouth to ask who when he stepped back and pulled the door wide, allowing passage for someone to slip around him into the room.
Broken Blood Page 2