Vivianne shifted, rising to her feet, feeling the cold air of the subterranean corridor against her naked skin.
Her father’s face turned ashen when he recognized her, and for a moment, his incisors retracted.
“Vivianne.”
He set J.J. on the ground and stepped toward her slowly. “What have they done to you?” he whispered. Then his face became mottled. “What have they done to you?” he repeated, this time in a roar.
She lifted her chin. “They haven’t done anything, Father. Consider this a by-product of surviving a lycan’s bite.” She felt calm. Balanced. Her worst nightmare was coming true—her father was discovering her secret—yet she’d never felt more confident, or stronger.
She took a step forward, her eyes on her father, but her attention was on poor J.J., who was even now rolling onto his stomach and screaming his lungs out as his skin rubbed against the cold concrete floor.
Vincent’s lip curled in disgust. “You had the audacity to question my methods, and you are living proof of why we have to stop them.”
Vivianne shook her head. “No, Dad. We can learn from them. They have such a strong family bond, so much loyalty among themselves...” Her lips tightened. “For so long, you had us believe they were not our equals, that they were of less value.” She folded her arms. “I’ve yet to hear of a werewolf killing their young.”
Vincent frowned. “Are you still angry about that? For God’s sake, Vivianne, it’s been nine hundred years. Get over it.”
She stalked up to her father, furious. “You don’t get it, do you? Can you seriously be that selfish, that self-serving? You killed me, Dad. You. Killed. Me.”
“I gave you a better life,” he snarled at her.
“No, you stole my life,” she yelled at him. “You never once asked me if I wanted to become a vampire. You just did it. You didn’t want to live your immortal life alone, so you killed us. Mom. Lucien. Me. Tell me, what makes you any better than the people who murdered Mom?”
Vincent’s eyes widened, and his hand flashed, catching Vivianne on her cheek, and her face whipped to the left with the impact. She took a deep breath at the sting, and the muscles tightened in her jaw as she clenched her teeth. She pushed the pain, the anger, down and then turned to face her father again.
“I wanted children. A family. Just like you did—just like you had. But you stole that from me,” she said to him, her voice low, but calm. “You’ve lost Mom. You’ve lost Lucien.” She nodded toward J.J. on the ground. “After this, you’ve lost me. You have no family. How does it feel, Dad?”
“You are not my daughter,” he growled at her. “You’re a monster. A freak. Your mother would turn in her grave if—”
“Mom would not approve of this,” she whispered, and stepped around him to walk toward J.J. “She loved children. All children. Guess what? So do I. I’m shutting you down, Dad. We’re done, here.”
Her father grasped her arm, twisting it around her back in a viselike grip. His hand grasped her chin, pulling her head painfully to one side. “I don’t think so. I believe your blood would make an interesting addition to our program, here.”
Vivianne’s eyes widened as she realized her father’s intent. With her arm twisted behind her back, she was in a dangerously vulnerable position. She closed her eyes, sucked in a breath and turned, feeling her upper arm crack as her strength matched his. She surrendered to the pain, just as she did before shifting. She clenched her other hand into a fist and raised it over her shoulder, hearing her father’s nose break with the impact. Her father’s grip slackened, and she turned to face him, glaring at him with contempt.
He stared at her with a surprise tinged with disbelief and horror. She straightened her arm, feeling the bone click back into place, feeling the warm rush of rejuvenation. She smiled grimly. “One thing I’ve learned with becoming part-lycan is that bones may break, but bones also heal.”
Her father’s eyes blazed red, and she flashed her own bloodlust at him. J.J. cried out again, and her father’s gaze swiveled to the baby. Vivianne’s eyes widened, and she dived just as he launched himself at J.J.
Chapter 21
Zane skidded as he rounded a bend, emerging into an antechamber. A pot lay overturned on a stove, its contents foul and smoking. A baby’s blanket lay on a table, and the roar of lycans echoed from the corridor beyond.
He stepped beyond the chamber and paused at what he saw. A long hallway stretched toward a door that was now shut, a fire extinguisher wedged between the handle to prevent it being opened from the other side. Vampires were pounding on the door, yelling, but as yet, the door held.
Harris leaned against a cell door, blood streaming down his face from a cut above his eye, and his arm badly broken.
At his feet lay three vampire guardians, necks twisted at awkward angles. Harris lifted his gaze, and recognition flared when he saw Zane.
Zane didn’t hide his confusion. Harris shrugged, then winced, holding his arm. “They came to kill the prisoners.”
Zane’s eyes widened. Harris had stopped his own kind from killing werewolves. He shook his head, still confused. “Why?” Why did this vampire guardian stand—at his own peril—between his own kind and the lycans?
Harris smiled weakly. “My grandmother was a redhead. A sweet little old lady. She made great cakes.” He wiped at the blood on his forehead, and it took Zane a moment to realize he hadn’t reacted to the sight or scent of blood. “She was also a lycan.” Harris moved his head in the direction of the door he leaned against. “They wanted to start with her.”
He moved a little so that Zane could peer through the slide window. A young woman with hair that looked like it could have been a burnished red-brown underneath the grime and oil was chained against a wall. She lifted her head, a familiar set of green eyes stared back at him. Caleb’s daughter.
“She’s a scion,” Zane said. He reached for the door handle, then hesitated. He was going to free her. Her and the rest of the werewolves in here. As soon as they saw a vampire, though, all hell would break loose, and after what Harris had done, he didn’t deserve to die.
Harris sighed, resigned, as he realized his intent. “You know, this is becoming a habit. Wait,” he said, as Zane reached for him. “Give the girl my jacke—”
Zane snapped his neck before he could finish the sentence, and he gently lowered Harris to the ground. He pulled Harris’s jacket off him, grimacing at the fluidity of the broken arm in the sleeve, and then yanked the door open, breaking the lock.
“You’re Caleb’s daughter,” he said, to put her at ease as he strode in and pulled the chains from the wall. He slid Harris’s jacket over the girl’s trembling shoulders.
She nodded. “Rory—Aurora.”
He smiled. “Your dad’s here. Help me release the others, then you can find him.”
She nodded, then stepped toward the door. She stepped over Harris, then turned to look down at the unconscious vampire. “He saved me,” she whispered, her brows drawn together in confusion.
Zane nodded. “Yes, he did. You remind him of his grandmother.”
Her eyebrows rose as he urged her toward the next door. “You start there. Let’s free these people.”
He broke the lock on the next door and walked in to break open the chains that bound the lycans. The muscles in his cheek flexed. These people were hurt, damaged. Some were bleeding, but he felt no compulsion to feed off them. Instead, he felt the need to help them.
He peered in the last door, and his shoulders sagged. Nate was inside, his arms chained to the wall, his ankles chained to the floor. His body showed the fight he’d put up, and the abuse he’d taken. His friend lifted his head. One eye was swollen shut, but the other showed his relief when he saw Zane.
Zane pulled the door off its hinges and quickly dispensed with the chains. He caught Nate as he fell, and pulled his arm over his
shoulder. Nate’s clothes hung from him in rags, torn and bloodied.
“J.J.,” Nate said, his voice rough.
Zane nodded. “Let’s go find J.J.”
He turned to the lycans who gathered in the hallway. The vampires at the door realized the werewolves were freed and began to back away. Zane saw the anger, the pain in the lycans’ faces.
“Do what you think is a fair thing,” he told them.
Rory walked resolutely toward the fire extinguisher as the others shifted, and suddenly there was a hallway of wolves ready to be let loose.
Zane turned away. Despite these being Vivianne’s people, they came down here intending to kill lycans. They deserved whatever punishment the lycans dished out. He didn’t look back when he heard the extinguisher clang on the floor, or when he heard the creak of the hinges as Rory opened the door.
He half walked, half carried Nate into the hallway, when a pained screech echoed down another hallway that led off the antechamber, and a baby’s cries accompanied it.
“J.J.,” Nate rasped.
“Vivianne,” Zane said at the same time. They both looked at each other, and then they started running down the hallway, Zane supporting his friend as they went.
* * *
Vivianne shifted, bones snapping and reforming, as she wrapped her beast’s body around the baby. She felt her father’s teeth sink into her shoulder and screeched with the pain. She could feel the blood seep from the wound. She recoiled, twisting around to face her father, teeth bared as she growled a warning at the man who looked like her father, but was indeed a monster.
Vincent Marchetta snapped his teeth at her, and she dodged him, but still kept her body between him and J.J. She growled again, trying to warn her father.
Back. Off.
Fury, hurt, anger, sadness, all the emotions rolled across her in waves, and she didn’t know which to go with. Her father was prepared to kill her. Or use her for testing—she wasn’t sure which was worse. She couldn’t stand it. He was going to kill her—again.
The first time, the realization had almost done the job of the toxin he’d fed her, bringing with it a debilitating pain that almost killed her. He’d coldly, ruthlessly planned her murder, along with her brother’s. There was nothing so crushing, so eviscerating, as the realization that your father, one of the people you thought you could trust with your life, was intentionally killing you.
Unless he tried to do it again. Then that really hurt.
She lashed out with a claw, catching him on the cheek. She should kill him. After all, he was prepared to kill her. And when he did that, he’d kill J.J. She couldn’t let that happen.
She snapped at him, and he recoiled, narrowly avoiding her teeth. Tears formed in her eyes. That had been close. So close, that she realized with all her anger and cold rage, all the resentment that had built up over nine centuries, she couldn’t do to him what he had done to her.
She would fight him, but in that minuscule moment, she realized she couldn’t kill her father, and from the satisfaction on his face, he must have realized it, too.
He was going to kill her, and then J.J.
She lowered her head and let out a long, rumbling growl. Not without one hell of a fight.
Vincent reached for her, and she barked at him, rising up on her hind legs to hit at him with her front claws. He moved fast, dodging to the side, then twisted to punch her in the gut, winding her. She fell to all fours, wheezing. Of course he’d go for a sucker punch. Even against his daughter, her father fought dirty.
His eyes blazed red, his teeth extended and smiled—smiled—at her. “You should have minded your own business, Vivianne.” He raised both fists and ran at her.
* * *
Zane saw Vivianne in her wolf form, standing over J.J., using her body as a shield between the baby and her father. Then he saw her recoil when Vincent struck her in her stomach, saw her legs shake as she stood guard over the baby. She’d never looked more magnificent, and he’d never feared for her more. He let go of Nate, and when Vincent jumped, Zane sprang forward, striking the vampire in the jaw with such force, a white tooth flew out and hit the wall opposite.
Vincent rolled along the floor, thumping into the wall. He looked dazed for a moment, and then looked up.
Zane stood in front of Vivianne and J.J., teeth bared, eyes blazing, and he growled at the Reform senator. Vincent bled from one side of his mouth—he’d lost an incisor. Zane rounded his shoulders, clenched his fists, bent his knees—and then a mass of brown fury barreled past him.
The wolf was a moving wall of intensity as he attacked Vincent Marchetta. The senator tried to fight him off, but the wolf was big—and pissed off. Snarling, biting, clawing... Vincent Marchetta didn’t stand a chance, and Zane straightened as Nate morphed into his human form once again. He spat out a mouthful of blood, his face an expression of disgust, as he glared down on the now very dead Reform senator.
“You go after our young, we go after you,” Nate said in a rough voice. He turned to Zane and paused. Then Nate stretched out his hand, a lycan symbol of shared respect and admiration. Zane clasped his hand briefly, then they both turned.
J.J. was crying, arms raised toward Nate. The dark wolf with deep burgundy highlights stood for a moment guarding him, then moved aside, shakily. Zane caught her as Nate scooped up the baby, clutching him to his chest and saying soft, soothing words that were in such strong contrast to the enraged beast of just a moment before.
Zane dropped to the ground. He felt Vivianne shift in his arm, and held the woman gently to him. Nate startled, his jaw dropping.
“Oh. My. God.”
Vivianne shook in his arms, and Zane realized she was crying. “Hey, shh, it’s okay,” he murmured, stroking her hair back from her forehead. He sat up for a moment to shrug out of his jacket and place it around her shoulders, being extra gentle with the bite wound on her right shoulder. “It’s okay,” he repeated, scooping her up gently.
She shook her head. “No, I couldn’t kill him,” she gasped, the tears running down her face as she looked up at him. “He was going after J.J., and I couldn’t kill him.”
Zane sighed as he rose, holding her in his arms. “It’s okay,” he whispered. He tilted her head back so her tortured brown gaze met his. “A true werewolf will risk her life to save the young,” he said quietly. “You did good.”
Nate stepped forward, and Zane met his friend’s eyes. Nate’s green gaze was somber as he turned to look at the miserable she-wolf in his arms. “And a true werewolf wouldn’t—couldn’t kill her kin.” He cuddled J.J. closer to him. The baby’s cries had softened, and now the little boy hiccupped against Nate’s chest. “You did good,” he said, repeating Zane’s words.
* * *
Vivianne pulled Zane’s jacket around her. It smelled of him. Myrtle. Cedarwood. A hint of almond. She trudged along beside him. She’d insisted she could walk, even though she was so tempted to let Zane carry her. She felt bruised and battered, both physically and emotionally, and just wanted to go home and curl up into a ball under her bed.
Her father was dead.
She knew she’d feel sorrow, and grief, and sadness—at the moment, though, she was numb. Zane said it was shock.
Marchettas didn’t succumb to shock, though. She straightened her shoulders, then looked over at Nate. He was carrying a now sleeping J.J. in his arms, but every now and then his gaze darted to both her and Zane, and she could see the conflict in his eyes.
Zane halted, his arm across her body, and she realized belatedly that the battle wasn’t over.
Screams, yells, grunts, growls—they could be heard faintly down the hall. More vampires, more werewolves, and all of them sounded like they were at war. Zane looked over at Nate and the baby. “Stay here,” he said, and Nate nodded.
Vivianne met Zane’s gaze. He arched an eyebrow. “Are you up fo
r this?”
“That depends what ‘this’ is,” she replied simply.
“Our folks are fighting among themselves,” he said. “We should stop them.”
Our folks. Not lycans versus werewolves, but “our folks.” She realized he’d accepted his vampirism, and considered the vampires as relevant, as respect-worthy, as his lycans. After going up against her father, and wanting to look after J.J., she could relate. She nodded.
They both stepped into the antechamber, and for a moment, all was chaos.
Zane growled, a sound so loud, so intense, a couple of broken doors fell completely off their hinges. And frankly, it made Vivianne step back and look at the man who seemed to become the alpha of all alphas when she wasn’t looking.
Everyone froze, then slowly turned their attention to the two figures at the end of the room.
“Cease,” Zane rumbled, his voice deeper than anything she’d ever heard before. His eyes were red with warning, his fangs were out. He was the embodiment of all the strength and nobility of both races. In that moment, everything coalesced into one crystal, sharp realization.
Zane was her mate. Her true life mate. He was strong enough to let her take her independence and do with it what she will, and strong enough to assert himself with both lycans and vampires, and in that moment, she loved him.
One of the vampires shifted, and she growled in warning, her own eyes flashing as she bared her teeth. He fell back, his face encased in shock.
She glared at everyone in the room. “All Nightwing vampires, stand down,” she said, her voice carrying along the hallway. “Vincent Marchetta is dead. If you are Nightwing, stand down. If you are Marchetta, step forward.” All of the vampires shifted back, and she nodded.
“All lycans, stand down,” Zane growled.
She recognized Caleb, alpha prime of River Pack, as he stepped forward. “They stole our young. Why the hell should we stand down?” He glared at her.
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