by J. N. Baker
“Okay, so you can’t freeze to death,” he amended. “But the cold will definitely slow your movements, making you sluggish, like a human.”
When I turned, Alec was standing right behind me with lust in his eye and a pile of clothes under his arm. I didn’t need any special powers to see what was going on in his mind. He stepped forward, closing the gap between us. He reached a hand out to me, his fingertips brushing across my collarbone and over my shoulder. Goose bumps raced to the surface of my skin and I shivered, but it didn’t have anything to do with the temperature. In fact, I suddenly found myself warming rather quickly. Alec released a breath and pulled his hand back before handing me the pile of clothes, which included a pair of snow boots.
“Put these on,” he said, his voice a bit strained. “They’ll keep you warmer than what you were wearing before.” And they aren’t covered in your friend’s blood, I practically heard him say.
“The others?” I asked as I slipped the long black cargo pants on, very aware of his eyes roaming over my bare flesh.
“They’re all taken care of. William made sure we were well prepared.”
I gave Alec a stiff nod and pulled the long-sleeved black V-neck over my head. “Seriously?” I muttered, tugging on the shirt. It was just as short, if not shorter than the shit Jade had made me wear and just as low-cut, if not lower, showing off a good portion of the white sunburst on my breastbone. What did I want to bet that Alec rifled through the chests of clothes until he found the least amount of fabric possible? I shot him a look.
“Jade picked it out,” he said as if reading my mind.
I cocked a brow at him. “And this is supposed to keep me warm?”
“It has sleeves,” he offered with a wicked grin and I rolled my eyes.
I plopped down on the foot of the bed and worked the laces on the nearly knee-high snow boots. At least those were practical. Alec knelt in front of me, gently pushing my hands away so he could help me lace up the boots with deft fingers.
When he was done, he stood and held out one last item of clothing to me. I tilted my head. “It’s a cloak,” he explained, motioning for me to stand. When I was back on my feet, he swung the black fabric around my shoulders. “You won’t want to wear it in battle, but it will keep out the chill while moving throughout the castle grounds.”
He clasped the cloak closed at the base of my neck, his fingers lingering as his eyes met mine. He leaned down, his lips only inches away. And that was when a voice rose from outside the castle. Our heads snapped up. The woman called out again. Even from how far away she was, I could hear the panic in her voice.
“Let’s go,” Alec muttered, reluctantly stepping away from me and making his way to the door. I followed, and within a minute, we were walking side by side out the front of the castle.
A woman stumbled clumsily through the snow a good twenty yards in front of us. “Martin?” she shouted. “Where are you, Martin?”
“Have you seen my niece?” another woman called out. “She’s a little girl, only six. She was with me on the plane. Sir, have you seen her?”
But no one had. As seconds stretched into minutes, more were reported missing. By the time we hit an hour, at least fifty people were unaccounted for and no one seemed to know where they went.
A woman who had introduced herself as Holly led us behind the castle to a trail of footprints that weaved into the forest. There was blood splattered on the ground, staining the snow crimson. We scanned the tree line to find that there were a number of bloody drag marks, most of which came straight from our people’s tents. Dragged away in their sleep. How cowardly.
“We should follow the trails before they get too far,” a woman suggested. “They might still be alive.” Her words were riling up those around her. Voices carried in the wind with talk of search and rescue. The rest of the Chosen slowly made their way to us.
“What are you, fucking stupid?” Markus asked, shoving his way through the growing crowd. “This is sure as shit a trap. You go gallivanting into that forest trying to play the hero and you’re gonna end up without a head.”
“You would have us leave them for dead?” a man beside me said. I recognized him as one of our vampires. The flash of fangs said he was anything but happy with Markus’s words.
“Listen up and listen good: your friends and family are already dead. Take a moment to grieve and move the fuck on.”
He wasn’t joking when he said “a moment.” After exactly ten seconds, Markus started shoving people away from the edge of the forest, barking orders as if nothing had happened.
“Bunch of pansy asses,” he grumbled as the crowd thinned. “It’s like they don’t realize that this is war. People die in war.” Markus turned to face William. “You need to have someone let those forest fairies know what’s going on. Baldric’s men are out there. Tell them to keep their tree-hugging eyes open.”
William nodded and motioned to Ryuu. “Go, but be careful.”
As Ryuu took off into the trees, the rest of us moved toward the castle. Apparently, word of Cindy’s death had spread farther than I’d thought if the sideways glances and blatant avoidance by the rest of our people were any indication. Outside of the Chosen, no one else seemed to want to get within six feet of me. Hell, even Cody had made a giant ass circle around me on his way out to Markus, very obviously trying to avoid eye contact. I couldn’t really blame any of them. I had killed one of our own people. Though, that didn’t make their mistrust sting any less. Cody’s especially.
Alec remained glued to my side, like my own personal bodyguard. No, bodyguard wasn’t the right word. He was like a damn shadow, hovering over me constantly. If I so much as breathed wrong, he was checking on me. While I appreciated his concern, I would’ve appreciated my space more—and my sword. Alec kept it securely strapped to his hip, right next to his own blade. It taunted me each time he turned.
Alec knew as well as I did that I didn’t need my sword to end my life. It wasn’t like I couldn’t find another weapon. There were only thousands of them lying around the castle just waiting to be used. What Alec didn’t know was that I still had Annie’s tiny dagger tucked into the back of my pants, concealed by the long, black cloak. What he didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him. At least, I hoped it wouldn’t.
I hadn’t seen Josh since he’d come to my bed chamber the night before while Alec was on his knees vowing to kill the beast behind Cindy’s murder. The look on Josh’s face was unlike any I’d ever seen on him, even after the “accident.” He looked so broken—empty—like a mere shell of his former self.
I wanted nothing more than to go to him, assure him that I was still alive—for now, at least—and to tell him how sorry I was. But, as quickly as he’d appeared, he was gone. And I’d been too weak and cowardly to chase after him…to be alone with him after what I’d done.
I tried to keep myself busy, shuffling around the castle with Alec practically standing on top of me. I moved boxes, unpacked crates, passed out winter clothing to those who hadn’t received any yet—anything to get my mind off Josh. But it wasn’t working. I found my eyes constantly searching for his familiar face among a crowd of mostly strangers.
I hated not knowing where he was, especially with so many of our people missing and likely dead. I couldn’t help but wonder if he’d also been taken in the night, dragged off with the rest of the victims. Or maybe he took William’s advice and left. Would he still do that, what with Tiffany being dead and all?
A twinge of guilt gripped my heart as I thought of him out there all alone. Damn William for putting those thoughts into his head. He wasn’t making me weak, was he? It didn’t matter. I didn’t care. He could make me weak all he wanted. I needed him. I needed him for as long as I could have him. Was that so wrong?
A voice in the dark corners of my mind said yes.
A part of me—a very small and unselfish part—knew it’d be for the best if he just left. Then I’d never be able to hurt him again, and he’d never have to face the same fate as
Cindy. And yet, if he was out there alone, he could just as easily be killed. I exhaled, scanning the crowd for the six hundredth time.
“Hey, you. Kid!” I looked up to find Jade trying to get the attention of a scrawny looking teenager walking along the castle wall.
He turned toward her, pointing a long bony finger to his chest. “Me?” he squeaked. He looked to be no older than seventeen, peach fuzz growing along his thin face. He was giving off some very human vibes, not to mention he looked like he was about to have a heart attack. I sure hoped he didn’t because I wasn’t familiar with CPR. I was used to taking lives, not saving them.
“Who does it look like I’m talking to?” Jade snapped. “Make yourself useful.”
“But I’m just a human,” he replied, confirming my suspicions.
“I don’t really care what you are,” Jade said. “You’ll pull your own weight around here, just like everyone else. Is that clear?”
The young kid gulped, sending his Adam’s apple bobbing. He nodded hesitantly.
“Good. Line those crates of weapons against that wall there. Separate firearms, explosives and melee weapons from one another. Can you handle that?”
He nodded again, making a dash for the large crates still scattered around the castle grounds from the night we arrived. He couldn’t even pick them up. Jade apparently wasn’t taking into consideration the fact that he probably only weighed ninety pounds soaking wet when she said he would have to pull his own weight. He put his chest against the first crate and pushed with all his might, sliding it across the snow at a snail’s pace. It was pathetic but he got points for trying.
“Can I be of any help?”
I turned to find the woman who had found the bloody trails approaching. Holly, I thought her name was. She was a petite thing with dirt clinging to both her cheeks where her short black hair rested. Her eyes, which seemed to light up as they danced over Alec’s body, were brown, speckled with flecks of green. She wore a tattered pair of jeans, a sweater that was a size too big for her small frame and one shoe.
“You know you can get some boots in the courtyard, right?”
She turned her attention to me. “I’m a shift,” she said. “I wanted to make sure those who needed them more got them first.”
“How noble of you,” I muttered.
“We can use all the help we can get,” Alec finally said, drawing her eyes back to him. He hardly looked at her, which gave me an odd satisfaction. I wasn’t stupid. I’d noticed all the stares my men received since we’d landed in Nevada. I hooked a possessive arm around Alec and Holly retreated a step. She was a fool if she didn’t think I noticed the way she stared at him as if he were the only man left on Earth. Shift or not, she was barking up the wrong tree.
“You can help stock the kitchen with the food we brought,” Alec told her. “When that is finished, check in with Jade to see if she needs more help with the weapon sorting.”
Holly nodded and then hobbled away with her shoulders slumped and her nonexistent tail tucked between her legs.
“How are you doing?” Alec asked, putting an arm around me and pulling me into his hard chest.
“As good as I can be for just killing one of my friends, assisting in killing my best friend’s girlfriend, and being the main desire of our arch-enemy. Oh, and there’s an army coming to kill us all. I think that about covers it.”
Alec frowned at me and I sighed, pulling out of his arms. “Don’t ask if you don’t want to know,” I grumbled.
“Looks like we’re going to have a whole range of weapons,” Jade announced as she approached us. I tried to look sane. What did “sane” look like exactly? Was it anything like “normal”? If so, I was up shit creek without a paddle and the damn canoe was sinking fast.
“That’s good,” Ryuu said as he came around the side of the castle to join us. He clapped Alec on the back and nodded to me before taking his place beside Jade. “We will need all of it if we stand a chance against Baldric’s forces.”
“Why aren’t you over there lifting and moving everything, Mr. I-can-move-shit-with-my-mind?” I asked, only half joking.
Ryuu shrugged and gave me an honest to God, no pity, no feeling sorry for me, grin. “Builds character.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw someone sprinting toward us. I reached for the sword that was no longer at my side and then glowered at Alec. He gave me a disapproving look and I felt stupid for reaching for it in the first place.
The teenager Jade had asked to sort weapons stopped short a few feet away from us, catching his breath. Sweat poured down his forehead and temples from pushing the one crate a whole forty feet. “My name’s James,” he panted, holding out a shaky hand. No one grabbed it and he yanked it back like he was worried we might chop it off. Jade might have out of annoyance. I might have out of insanity.
“What do you want, human?” Alec asked.
James gulped. “I was just, um, wondering if you think we’re going to be able to defeat these guys?”
“Don’t worry yourself to death. You’d be amazed what people can do when they come together,” Annie said as she walked out of the castle. She flashed the teenager a genuine smile and his shoulders visibly relaxed. I wished I had just a shred of her optimism.
“Or we’ll all die.”
I looked back in search of a face to match the husky, solemn voice, half expecting to see Markus standing there. Instead, a tall man with an uncanny resemblance to James stepped toward us. Their hair was the same soft color of blond and their eyes were almost an identical shade of deep brown. He was taller than James with more muscle in his arms and more weight around his waist. Based on the grisly scar that encircled his neck, I assumed he didn’t always have such a gravelly voice.
“Shut up, Rhett!” James snapped.
“You’ll have to excuse my baby brother,” Rhett said, putting emphasis on the word baby. “He’s on the verge of his change and it makes him a whiny little bitch.”
“Not so human after all,” Alec observed. “At least, not for much longer.”
“How much longer do you have?” I asked, remembering what Cody told me about shifts starting to change form at the age of eighteen.
James dug a booted toe into the snow. “Another four months.”
“Too long,” Rhett said, looking down his nose at his brother. I noticed the pain in his hard eyes as he spoke. “He won’t shift before Baldric’s men are on us. Not that it matters. That won’t save him. I don’t see how any of us are getting out of this alive.”
“The morale of my men is great, isn’t it?” Markus grunted, marching up behind the two brothers. “Bunch of lily-livered pansies if you ask me. Over here already talking of defeat before the battle has even begun.”
Rhett’s back straightened a little, showing his clear military background. “Sorry, sir,” he said. “I just don’t think we have the numbers. You and I know more than most what the general is capable of.”
Markus’s eyes fell to the scar around Rhett’s neck and he nodded. “That might be true, but our numbers are just fine.”
“With all due respect, sir, I was in Baldric’s ranks a lot more recently than you were. His numbers have blown up in the past few years. He’s going to annihilate us.”
Markus’s eyes flashed yellow as a growl slipped past his thin lips. I thought I saw Rhett flinch. “We will not simply accept defeat and we sure as shit won’t just roll over without a bloody fight. If you are so afraid to die, then take your brother and leave. I wouldn’t want you to piss yourself during battle.”
Rhett grunted and dropped back in line with the rest of our people, grabbing a crate and hoisting it onto his wide shoulders as he made his way into the castle.
“That’s what I thought,” Markus snorted, turning his attention to James. “Come on, noob, let’s get you suited up with some big guns until you learn to sprout some fur on that gangly ass body of yours.”
I leaned over to Jade when they were out of earshot. “We’re
all going to die, aren’t we?”
“Yep.”
“Excellent.”
The second Alec’s attention was elsewhere I snuck off to the newly finished graveyard. More than a dozen tiny crosses already lined the snow-covered ground. I knew there’d be more—many, many more. I found myself wondering if there would be anyone left at the end of all this to do the burying. Perhaps the earth would just swallow all the bodies as it had after the Great War.
I treaded through the snow, walking along the row of crosses in search of one specific name. The fifteenth cross was Cindy’s and I collapsed.
“I’m so sorry, Cindy,” I whispered, resting my forehead against the tiny wooden cross. “You deserved so much more than this. More than me. I wasn’t much of a friend to you, was I? I couldn’t even protect you when it mattered most. There was so much that you wanted in life and I took it all away from you. I wish we could have met when I was still human. Maybe then things would have been different.”
I stiffened in the snow. Someone’s eyes were on me, burning a hole straight through my back. I leapt to my feet, scanning the trees until I saw the flicker of a torch. The man quickly turned away, leading one of our horses into the forest and disappearing into the darkness.
“Josh?”
I was on my feet and running after him before I knew what I was doing. Skidding to a stop at the edge of the forest, I called out his name, but there was no answer. Markus’s words echoed in the back of my mind: You go gallivanting into that forest trying to play the hero and you’re gonna end up without a head.
Baldric’s men were out there waiting for us, ready to kill more of our people. And those same men knew Baldric wanted me for himself. Not to mention the fact that it might not have actually been Josh. That damned Sythen could’ve been messing with my head again to lure me out. I looked down at the fresh footprints in the snow.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
Flipping my hood up, I took a hesitant step into the forest, pulling Annie’s tiny dagger out from beneath my cloak. It wasn’t much but it would have to do. I flipped the cold steel in my hand and crept farther into the trees. The tall trunks creaked and moaned above me as a heavy fog settled over the snow, concealing Josh’s tracks. Something rustled in the dark and I spun on my heels, holding the dagger out in front of me as the horse trampled through the brush.