Broken Blood

by Heather Hildenbrand

  “Tara! We’re ready,” Cambria called from behind me.

  I hesitated only a second longer and then raced back to where Cambria stood with Astor. “Wes,” I called, “Let’s do this.”

  He didn’t move and I huffed, grabbing Logan by his sleeve. “Go to him. Take the syringe,” I said.

  “But—” Logan took one look at my face and his argument died on his lips. “Going.”

  I waved Benny closer with the camera and Cambria smoothed her hair with a nervous gesture. Benny signaled and Cambria offered the lens a tight smile before beginning.

  “My name is Cambria Hebert. I was born a Hunter and I’m a senior...sort of,” she mumbled and then louder, “at Wood Point Academy. I am entering into this change willingly and by my own volition. No one as forced me. I am a supporter of peace between Hunters and Werewolves.”

  With shaking hands, she turned away—to face Astor. Benny stepped back to pan out and include them both in the shot. I offered Cambria an encouraging smile but she wasn’t looking at me. She wasn’t looking at anyone.

  Astor hovered over Cambria’s arm with a syringe full of my blood and the necessary cocktail to usher in the changes to her DNA that would make her a Werewolf.

  “Ready?” he asked Cambria.

  She nodded and bit her lip. Astor swabbed her inner elbow and then adjusted the syringe’s tip near her skin. He’d assured me the accelerant was safe and would ensure the process happened over the course of a few minutes instead of a few days. Of course there’d been no way to test it.

  “Here’s to hoping,” Astor muttered, which only made me more nervous. Then he shoved the syringe expertly into the crook of Cambria’s arm.

  She winced and he depressed the contents into her vein and pulled the needle free. Immediately, Cambria wavered. “Whoa,” she said, blinking furiously. “Head rush.”

  “Sit down,” I said, guiding her to the grass. She sat heavily, her eyes already wide and glassy.

  “Now mine,” I continued, yanking my jacket sleeve out of the way and offering him my arm.

  Along the tree line, the fights had turned more to scuffles as more and more of the Hunters turned their attention to the member of their team who’d suddenly vanished. Three Hunters had joined the gray wolf in his search near the wards’ hole. I watched them drift closer to the opening as the needle pierced my skin.

  George looked back at me and caught me watching. “At least they aren’t fighting,” he called.

  The moment the words left his mouth, the gray wolf stuck its head through the hole.

  Everyone on our side froze. Including Astor and Logan, both with syringes containing the next round of injections held in their limp hands. Wes stepped forward, including the Hunter woman in his layer of protection. Derek joined him.

  The gray wolf’s eyes narrowed and he stepped all the way through. Behind him, the three Hunters spilled into the yard and the rest of their group, including the remaining Werewolves, all sprinted for the hole.

  The gray wolf’s eyes widened as it took in the sight of the crowded yard. Behind him, as the rest of them crossed the ward line, two groups formed. Hunters huddled together on one side and the packs of Werewolves merged into one group on the right.

  They faced off, emitting growls and snarls amid raised weapons.

  Wes and Derek rushed between the two.

  “Stop!” Cord strode into the center of them all, head high. I motioned for Benny to stay on her with the camera. He inched forward, looking terrified of getting too close. “This is a gathering for peace,” Cord said. “No violence is permitted.”

  “How can you claim to want peace when your friends are the reason our kinds are at war,” said the woman. Her gaze flicked to Wes and then back to me. I raised my chin, my mouth a hard line.

  “Gordon Steppe was the reason. He lied to you,” Cord said.

  “And how do we know you’re not lying to us now. You claim to be his daughter,” the woman said. “But Steppe has no family.”

  “Because he disowned me when I left,” Cord said.

  “Prove it,” the woman said.

  The wolves whispered among themselves, heads bent close together.

  “Do you have something to say?” Cord asked.

  “Steppe had a daughter once,” the gray wolf—clearly the leader—said.

  An angry murmur went through the assembled group of Hunters. The boy I’d seen earlier stepped forward. “How do you know that and we don’t?” he demanded.

  Several of the wolves growled in response but another voice called out, “Because Steppe erased the proof from the world by living his own lies so believably, he had everyone fooled.” A second later, Alex appeared. He stepped through the hole as if he’d seen it all along, a large bound volume in his hands.

  I sighed in silent relief and caught his eye for a brief second as he made his way into the throng. He stopped next to Wes, which made my pulse race all over again.

  “Who are you?” one of the wolves demanded.

  “Alex Channing,” said the Hunter boy, awestruck. “You’re the guy who single-handedly killed all those—”

  “Let’s not live in the past, all right?” Alex interrupted.

  The boy fell silent and the wolves up front pawed the ground. One of them, its fur the color of dark brown, lunged and caught one of the Hunter’s ankles in its jaw. The Hunter screamed and brought his fist down on the wolf’s head. The wolf abruptly released the man’s foot and slunk away. All around, the two groups inched closer, violence written on their faces.

  Out in the woods, the sound of footsteps approached, and I scanned until I spotted the movement. Everyone fell silent, waiting to identify the newcomers. I sucked in a breath when I spotted them all.

  My mother, along with Jack and Fee, appeared just left of a stand of trees several yards out. Nearby, Grandma, Kane, and Professor Flaherty flanked right. None of them were looking at the clearing. Instead, they had weapons trained on something I couldn’t see, something behind them. They stopped and waited.

  A second later, their target emerged. In their crosshairs was a pack of lanky, mangy Werewolves, every one with gleaming yellow eyes.

  Steppe’s failed hybrids. They were here. And they’d never been great at listening or saying no to a fight.

  At my feet, Cambria tugged on my pants. “Tay,” she said in a wobbly voice. I looked down and my breath caught in my throat as I saw what she’d become in the space of a few minutes. “I can’t be sure I’m not drunk, but I think my skin has hair,” she said.

  She made a noise like a grunt and then her eyes rolled back in her head and she slumped sideways, unconscious.

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  “Alex, show them The Draven. Now,” I called.

  Without waiting for an answer, I snatched the syringe from Astor. “You have to stay with her,” I told him, pointing at a still-unconscious Cambria on the ground between us. “Don’t let anyone near her. Do whatever you have to.”

  “What am I going to do? I have no weapon,” he said, barely avoiding a stutter. I felt horrible at putting this all on him, but there was no choice. The hybrid pack angled closer to the hole—as if they’d been watching. As if they knew exactly where it was.

  My mom and the others tracked along with them in a parallel line, but the hybrids were ignoring them. Intent on their destination. And I knew Grandma would only resort to violence if they attacked first. We were here for peace. Cord had made that clear. We couldn’t go back on it now.

  I turned back to Astor, laid my hand on his arm. “Shift if you have to,” I told him. “Be scary. Like you showed us before. You can do this,” I said.

  “But...” he sputtered but I was already running.

  I caught sight of Ms. Hebert watching me from the window. Her eyes were wide, her arms wrapped around her middle in a tight hug. Worry lines creased her forehead. I turned away and ran for the others.

  I was hyper-aware of the metal stake I’d hidden in my boot, but I did
n’t take it out. My syringe was the only weapon I’d need—I hoped.

  Up ahead, Alex had The Draven open and was showing it off to anyone who’d look at it—along with the parchment he was waving in the air out of reach. Benny was bent close, zooming the camera to offer a clear view of Steppe’s last act as leader. When I got close, I saw drops of blood littered the bottom half of the page. Steppe’s markings made the words above absolute law. I spotted Cord’s name and the words “rightful heir and leader” before Alex shifted away again.

  “Today’s new treaty, the shifting of our leadership, will only work if both sides will sign it and take the message back to your families and friends,” Alex said.

  “Dude,” said the Hunter kid with the wannabe-Alex haircut. “You want peace with Werewolves?”

  The gray wolf snarled and I couldn’t blame him. The way the kid said the last word made me want to snarl.

  “Yes,” Alex said firmly. He met my eyes as I wedged myself in between him and Wes. “I’ve made my choice,” he said, his eyes glinting with the meaning of something so much deeper than the words he used. “But only because I’ve seen what conflict will do. And I believe in Tara Godfrey, in Cordelia Steppe, and in their commitment to peace. They really do see us all as equals and if they can do it, I can too.”

  There was a collective pause as everyone considered Alex’s words. I itched to point out Cambria and the change already happening, but I knew better than to rush any of it. Or any of them.

  “How’d I do?” Alex whispered.

  I smiled at him, ready to assure him he’d done perfectly. Outside the circle, a wolf howled, shattering the thoughtful silence.

  A battle cry from the hybrid wolves.

  As a single unit, they rushed at the hole in the wards. At the noise, Cambria stirred and a connective line sprang up between us, invisible and weak but there. It was happening. We were already beginning to connect.

  “What’s—” the Hunter woman began.

  But her question abruptly ended as we watched Grandma’s crossbow fire an arrow that sank quickly into the shoulder of the leader. His soldiers poured around him, some even stepping over him as they rushed for the entrance.

  “Everyone get back,” Cord warned.

  “Who are they?” one of the wolves asked. “I’ve never seen them.”

  “They were Steppe’s army,” I said, casting a desperate look at Logan. He still hovered near Wes, the syringe ready, but I couldn’t. Not yet.

  I could feel Cambria’s struggle in my mind as she alternated between fighting and embracing the change. She still wasn’t conscious, but the bond was getting stronger. I knew without turning she was still lying in the grass at Astor’s feet near the porch. And she was in pain. So much pain. She needed me, I could feel it.

  The longer she suffered through the transition, the stronger our connection became. I wasn’t ready to take it away. Not yet. Not when my own mind gave her strength while hers was broken down and reconstructed again as a new creature.

  “Tara, what’s the plan?” Logan asked nervously. He inched backward, still within reach of Wes, but his torso was twisted to protect Victoria, who huddled behind him.

  “Back up,” I said. “If they make it inside, we need room to fight them.”

  “We can’t fight—” Cord began.

  “These we can,” I insisted. The Hunters and Werewolves assembled around us stared as Kane and Professor Flaherty took down a set of wolves in tandem.

  “These are hybrids who have embraced the darkness that comes with the change. Steppe used them to incite conflict, to kill innocents and sow discord between us. These are the reason we are at odds. Steppe and his army. Not me, not my friends,” I said.

  I stepped away from Alex and the book and brushed shoulders with the Hunters, including Alex’s biggest fan. He looked over at me with wide eyes, as if my touching him made the whole thing more confusing, and then glanced at his comrades in uncertainty.

  “She’s telling the truth,” Alex said, “I can vouch for her.”

  After a moment’s consideration, the boy planted his feet beside me with a firm nod. “I’ll fight with you,” he said.

  The first of Steppe’s hybrids crossed the line and ducked through the hole. Behind him, his friends fell with sharp cries and muted yelps as Grandma and my mom unleashed arrows. Jack and Fee darted among the pines, their jaws coated in blood.

  “What about us?” the lead hybrid growled. Jasper, the one I’d seen in Steppe’s lab, working with Olivia. His yellow eyes glowed through the slits of its narrowed lids. His fur was patchy; matted in some places and missing in others. It reminded me of Rafe after he’d been burned—only, these wounds stemmed more from their bodies rejecting parts of the change than anything else. Somehow, it made them look more dangerous.

  I shifted, putting myself between Jasper and the closest Hunter. “What about you?” I asked.

  In my mind, Cambria stirred. She was waking slowly, but I couldn’t allow myself the relief. Not when we were evenly matched by an enemy that had never been one to show mercy.

  “Who will we trust? All I ever see from you is violence,” Jasper said in a gravelly voice. It stalked closer, unconcerned with the Hunters who crept in at its back, slowly surrounding it.

  “You can trust our promise for peace,” Cord said, appearing beside me. She offered her hands, palms up, both empty of any weapon. “We won’t fight you unless you give us no choice,” she told it.

  “Just like your father gave us no choice,” Jasper growled.

  And then he leaped.

  I jumped clear, dragging the Hunter kid with me. We fell in a heap and I scrambled to my feet, stumbling and barely breathing in my panic. Jasper hadn’t jumped at us but around us. He was aimed for someone—something—else entirely.

  “Cambria!”

  Derek’s voice was raw and panicked and would’ve matched mine had I been able to find and use it.

  I heard the others’ footsteps pounding behind me, but we were never going to reach her in time. Jasper’s jaw fell open, his grimy teeth wet with drool over its anticipation. My stomach lurched and I screamed through whatever connection there was for Cambria to move.

  But she could barely blink her eyes. Everything about her movements felt heavy. She lifted an arm but it fell again and she squinted up at the approaching wolf.

  Behind her, the porch door tore open and Ms. Hebert launched herself off the landing. She fell with a thud over her daughter’s body and both of them grunted. I felt, rather than saw, the air whoosh out of Cambria’s burning lungs at the exact moment the hybrid’s teeth sank into flesh.

  An exaggerated moment of silence hung and then Ms. Hebert screamed, her body arching into a rigid line. Jasper released her, hesitating and clearly confused over the last-minute redirect of his attack. In his mind, he’d missed.

  Derek was on him then, knocking him clear of both Cambria and her mother. Astor, struggling on his stocky legs, half-man, half-wolf, lumbered after them. Logan handed me the syringe meant for Wes.

  “Here,” he said, already hurrying past, headed for Astor. “Someone needs to save him from himself.”

  Along with Logan, the gray wolf and the Hunter woman sprinted by me, headed for the fight with the hybrid. I turned, wondering why more hadn’t joined them, but the space behind me was empty.

  The rest of them had poured back through the hole in the wards and joined in the takedown of the rest of the hybrid pack. As I watched, Alex and his new protégé tag-teamed a lean black wolf with patchy scabs. The rest of them had also teamed up, some even working with a member of the opposite race as they fought the hybrids back from the entrance.

  Victoria and Emma rushed forward and bent over Ms. Hebert. “She’s alive,” Victoria said, “but she’s losing blood. We need Fee.”

  “I’ll get her,” Emma said, racing off.

  Victoria hooked her arms around Ms. Hebert and swung the woman up into her arms. Ms. Hebert moaned, her lids fluttering as s
he hung limp in Victoria’s grasp. “I’m taking her inside,” Victoria said.

  “I’ll come with,” Benny said. He handed the camera off to Cord and followed Victoria inside.

  “Keep filming,” I said, hating that we were doing this to Cambria. But there was no choice. We were all beginning to work together and none of that had been filmed. This was our last shot.

  Cord scowled but repositioned the camera and pointed it down at Cambria.

  “What’s happening to her?” a voice beside me asked.

  I looked up and found a Hunter girl with almond-shaped eyes and a scar along her collarbone. She looked vaguely familiar and I blinked, trying to place her.

  “Kristin Walters,” she said. “I graduated with Alex.”

  “Right,” I said, remembering her in the closing ceremonies we’d attended. “She’s changing,” I said, glancing back down at Cambria.

  Kristin crouched and looked up at me. “Cambria, right?” she asked. “I remember her. We had study hall together.”

  Wes appeared on my other side, bumping me with his furry shoulder. “Not yet,” I told him, already fully aware of what he was after. “She needs me.”

  Kristin gave me a quizzical look.

  “In order to keep her body from rejecting the change, we injected her with my blood. It’s the missing ingredient Steppe didn’t include for them,” I said with a nod at the forest.

  “So, your blood helps make her strong enough?” Kristin asked.

  “Yes. But it also psychically bonds us. I promised her I’d remove that part once she was strong enough to handle it on her own,” I said.

  “Why are you doing this to her?” Kristin asked.

  A few other Hunters crowded around, some panting, just returned from the fight. Several Werewolves trailed behind. The gray wolf, the leader, joined us and I spotted a jagged wound opened on his left shoulder. A thin trail of blood leaked from it and pooled on the ground at his feet.

  “She chose this,” I said, raising my voice and facing them all. “She wanted to be the first to show you that Hunters and Werewolves—even someone who is both—will be treated equal with Cord in charge.”