Marked by Courage: Vampire Shifter Romance (Blood Red Series Book 3)

by W. J. May

  “Kallie, can I ask you a favor?” Her mother looked over at her, suddenly composed.

  “Of course. Anything.”

  “Could you get that nice policeman over here?”

  “Liam? Why?” Kallie frowned.

  “I need to ask him something.” When Kallie just frowned, her mother lifted her shoulders. “I think I recognized one of those vampires. I think maybe he could use his police skills to track him down.”

  “Oh. I…uh...” Kallie stood up abruptly. “Sure, I’ll be right back.” She ran from her mom’s room and burst back into the kitchen with a finger to her lips. “You two need to go downstairs. Liam’s coming over.”

  “So I’m being kicked out of my own kitchen?” her father asked testily.

  “Yes. Just for now. Look, Mom said she thinks she knew one of the vampires, and she’s asking if I know a Petra.” Kallie waited for the importance of her words to dawn on them. When their faces went white, she gestured. “Exactly. So I figure, Liam knows and he can just promise to look into it and throw her off the scent, okay?”

  “That’s…not a bad idea.” Her father looked worriedly up the stairs. “She really asked about Petra?”

  “One of the rogue Reds said the attack was for Petra.”

  “For Petra as in, at her order, or as in, because they don’t like her?” Caleb looked up, worried.

  “Oh, crap, I hadn’t even thought of that.” Kallie shook her head. “You two try to figure that out; I’ll get Liam up to talk to her.” She pulled out her phone and sent a quick text, cursing as she remembered it was daylight. “I suppose you have some time after all. He can’t come over for a few hours.”

  The day passed so slowly that she wanted to scream, interminable enough that Kallie found herself approaching the shaded windows of her bedroom, stretching her hand out to pull the curtains aside. It was foolish and she knew why: it would hurt her, probably even kill her. She had no clue. It had taken wicked witch power to turn Caleb into a day-walker. Chances were that if she stepped into directly sunlight, she would just end up as dust in the wind—or ash. More likely ash. She was so frantic with inaction and so desperate for the taste of what she had lost that she almost didn’t care.

  It was just after sundown when Liam strolled to the door, nose flaring at the scent of Caleb. He took in Kallie’s worried face and smiled tightly. She had briefed him via text to make sure her mother didn’t overhear anything, and there was no need to speak.

  “Is she upstairs?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay.” He disappeared, taking the stairs two at a time, and Kallie paced the first floor, rubbing her forehead. When Liam reappeared, his appearance did nothing to reassure her. He was frowning.

  “Is everything okay?”

  “I’m…not sure.” He shook his head. “I’ll know more soon.”

  “But she doesn’t know about Petra?”

  “It wasn’t really about that.” He looked away from her. “I’ll…I know you have questions. I’ll explain when I can, okay? I have to go.”

  “Already?” Kallie watched him as he left the house, and then drive away in his car. It was, she realized, the first time he hadn’t tried to kiss her. She was still staring, distractedly, when Caleb emerged from the basement.

  “Is everything all right?”

  “I honestly don’t know.” She looked back at him, frowning.

  “We’ve managed to trace some of the rogue Reds. We can go now, if you want.”

  “I’ll get my coat.”

  Chapter 14

  “We’re going into the forest?” Kallie tried to keep the apprehension out of her voice as they shut the doors of the car behind them and set off. She’d seen where they were going in the car, of course, but she’d hoped that they might drive all the way through the forest and look for the rogue Reds somewhere a little less shadowy. The forest reminded her of a horror movie. And if they stumbled across the Blue nest…she shivered. “I mean, here?”

  “Yes.” Caleb looked over at her, frowning. “Why?”

  She tried to search for an answer that didn’t have to do with the Blues hiding out, terrified, in their nest. She had heard real fear in their voices when they told her she had the power to destroy them now. Unless she found out they had lied to her in some way, she would not betray them. “I just figured the Reds would have moved. And finding you like you were, wasn’t exactly pleasant.”

  “Hey.” Caleb was at her side a moment later, his arm around her shoulder. “I survived. Okay? I’m here now. In the flesh; a little cooler than the average human temperature, but flesh nonetheless.”

  “I know.” Kallie managed to smile up at him. “But it horrifies me to think of it. This forest…it’s where evil things happen.”

  “Only for now,” her father said strongly from beside them. Caleb jumped, as if having forgotten that he was there, and unwound his arm from Kallie’s shoulders. “Someday, the vampires who do things like this will be gone. It will be peaceful again.” Her father looked over and caught Kallie watching him. “What is it?”

  “Nothing.” Kallie looked away, shaking her head. It was the same sentiment she’d heard James espouse, though it was colored differently. Both of them feared the rule of vampires. But where her father had simply accepted their cruelty as part of the natural order of things, James still dreamed of a new world, no matter how unlikely it was. If only James had turned her father, instead of one of the Reds.

  She might never have met Caleb, then. Kallie clenched her hands where they were stuffed in her pockets, and tiptoed through the undergrowth. The other two weren’t trying to be particularly quiet, but she still felt the sound of every snapped branch and crunched leaf vibrating through her body. The Reds would hear them coming from miles away at this rate.

  Her father raised his nose, sniffing slightly, and Kallie did her best not to stare over at him in terror. He was smelling the Blues, she told herself. His enemies. He was smelling them.

  “It smells like Blues in here.” His words sent ripples of panic through her, and they only increased when Caleb stopped dead.

  “It does?”

  “Of course it does,” Kallie snapped, surprised by the speed at which she found the lie. “You’ve been smelling it the whole time, right?”

  “Well…” Her father thought back. “Yes, I think so.”

  “Hellooooo.” Kallie gestured to her eyes, shaded as they were by the sunglasses. “Your daughter, purple eyes, got some blue in her. Ring any bells? And remember, I’ve been hanging out with Liam.”

  Her father stared at her. “You’re probably right. I’d forgotten.” He frowned worriedly. “I’m not going to feel angry when I smell you forever, am I?”

  “No, because I’m going to stop the war.”

  “Kallie, we talked about this.” Her father stopped walking and crossed his arms over his chest.

  “Yeah, and the last time we talked about it, you said it was impossible and then it turned out I’m some sort of mythical Hybrid thing. And also, Caleb’s a day-walker and you’re a vampire who’s never drunk from a human in two years. We’re a whole walking set of impossibilities. I don’t see why this other one should be any more difficult to get around.”

  Her father laughed, genuinely laughed, and hugged her close. “I’d missed your sense of humor.”

  “That wasn’t a joke!”

  “I know. You get very sarcastic when you’re passionate about stuff. It’s a delightful contrast. You always had a passion for justice, Kallie, and you couldn’t see why people wouldn’t just fall in line. It was—”

  “Shh.” Caleb held up a hand for silence.

  Kallie looked at him, her heart beginning to race. She could feel her father beside her, solid and comforting, and she wanted to stay like this forever, free of the rogue Reds. How long since she had really hugged him? She had been seventeen, too young to lose her father that way.

  Nineteen was too young to lose her mother, but she didn’t want to think about
that.

  Caleb waited, scanning the trees. For a long minute, nothing moved. The forest carried on with its chirps and rustles, trees sighing in the breeze, but there was no sound like they had made, unnatural and clumsy. Kallie clenched her hands, scanning the trees for the glint of red eyes. They might be waiting—

  Without warning, the rogue Reds burst out of the leaves beside them, slamming into Kallie and her father and bowling them over onto the forest floor. Kallie hit the ground with a thud. She felt a rock crack against her skull, and the itch of the bone healing almost instantly. Was that a normal vampire thing, or a Hybrid thing?

  She didn’t have time to worry about it. She tried to push herself upright and was slammed onto the ground again, this time with a Red’s hands at her neck. She twisted desperately, hips trapped under his legs. Her fingers pulled at his, a battle of wills. He was the bouncer from the club, but he was nothing if only she could touch that well of amethyst power inside her once again.

  “Kallie!” It was Caleb who yelled. He was holding off three other rogue Reds, fighting with a ferocity that took her breath away. He was poetry in motion, dodging hits and slamming his fists and elbows into their bodies. “Don’t do anything stupid!”

  Don’t do anything noteworthy! Don’t show them what you are! His call in her mind was panicked.

  I have to. Kallie was beginning to twist the bouncer’s hands away, grimacing with the effort, and she gave a yell as she threw him off her, sideways. She needed time. She needed to be able to access the power within her, and she just needed a moment of space.

  She didn’t get one. Two of the other Reds were on her in a second. She barely had the time to scrabble away across the rough ground, wincing at the prick of sharp branches and the stab of rocks. She could not let them get on top of her—she was strong, very strong. Except she needed to access her power and she could not do that if they were choking the life out of her.

  Could a vampire die that way? She realized she had no idea at all what might kill her in this fight. She really should have thought of that sooner. With a stab of fear, Kallie parried their hissing attacks and tried to rally herself. Her father was fighting like a man possessed, laughing as the rogue Reds fell away from him. They were no longer ten-strong against him, and it must have been satisfying, indeed, to watch them realize they might be outmatched.

  None of the rogue Reds here, Kallie realized, had been there the night her father was chained to the ground. These might all be loyal to Petra. And that night, she realized, the old woman had left before the others. Petra might have allowed her to feed on the husband she once held dear, but had they known that there was division in the ranks of the Rogues?

  A fist slammed into the side of her head and she reminded herself that now was not the time to be asking questions like that. Now was the time to fight. She jerked her elbow sideways and around, catching the rogue Red in the face and listening to her scream with a detached sort of amusement. These people, whether or not they were on her mother’s side, were her enemies, and they had thought to ambush her and her father. They had tried to kill Caleb. Kallie would not go easy on them.

  “Who do you work for?” She caught one of the two attacking her and squeezed her fingers around their throat. She was so close to touching the source of her power, she just needed a moment with no one hitting her. “Who told you to kill us?”

  The rogue Red only laughed, a hissing sound, as she clawed against Kallie’s hands.

  “Even with…the Blue…you’ll never win.”

  “We seem to be doing pretty well right now.”

  “I’ll stake you myself,” the woman hissed at her.

  Whether it was the fear of death or the flash of anger, Kallie could not say, but the power came roaring into her in a moment. The woman was flying backward, hitting a tree trunk with a sickening crunch, and Kallie turned as the other woman and the bouncer came at her in what seemed like slow motion. Her fist lashed out, impacting her face so hard that it snapped her head back, and Kallie turned to plant her foot in the man’s sternum. He went over backward and skidded.

  Kallie did not pause to think. Caleb had held off three rogue Reds for the whole fight, but she could see his energy lagging now. His movements were getting slower, only barely blocking their hits out of the way, and he was no longer successfully sneaking hits past their guards. Even as Kallie was launching herself toward the knot of them, one managed to land a kick that sent Caleb staggering back into a tree, and the others bared their teeth for a taste of his blood.

  Like hell she was going to allow that. She was on them the next second, wrenching them out of the way. The ease with which she flung them across the tiny clearing was laughable; in fact, she could hear herself laughing as she did it. They were so puny and weak. Why had she ever feared them?

  The other bouncer turned on her with a snarl and Kallie tilted her head, giggling a little at how pretentious she must look in her sunglasses. What kind of vampire wore sunglasses at night? She grinned, showing the points of her teeth, and he charged with a yell. He was airborne a moment later, and he hit the trunk of a tree and thudded down.

  But he’d had the sense no one else had had yet. As Kallie turned back, she realized that something was missing. A quick glance showed her the mistake she’d made: as she turned to fling the man, along with his own momentum he’d snatched her glasses away. In the dim light, the power in her eyes shone.

  There was a stricken silence, and then the rogue Reds who could still run were up and moving, leaving their wounded comrades behind. Kallie’s father took off after them with Kallie and Caleb in hot pursuit, but the Reds had scattered, and they could see within seconds that they would never catch them all.

  “Shit!” Kallie whispered as they slowed to a halt.

  “Language,” her father said sharply.

  Caleb offered a weak smile, clearly finding the concern about language amusing, but Kallie could not even make her lips twitch. The rogue Reds had seen her. She had disregarded Caleb’s one set of instructions, and as a result a powerful enemy knew just what she was.

  “Kallie,” Caleb said finally. “Do you know where we can find some Blues?”

  “What?” She looked over sharply. “No!”

  “Are you sure?” When she shook her head jerkily, he sighed. “I can’t see all the way into your mind, Kallie, but it’s pretty clear you’re lying to me.”

  She paused. “They’re vulnerable,” she said finally. “They’ve helped me, saved my life. I’m not going to help you kill them.”

  “I don’t mean to kill them,” Caleb said seriously. “For once, I really don’t.”

  “Then why would you ask?”

  “Because those Reds just went to warn someone,” he told her. “You know it, I know it. And right now there are three of us—four, if we count Liam. That’s not enough. We need allies, Kallie. A whole army of them.”

  Chapter 15

  Kallie let her head drop into her hands and bit her lips to keep from making a sound. She had been working on her withdrawal paperwork for an hour, her chin trembling and her eyes welling up with tears every few minutes. She had shoved the feelings away and kept working as long as she could. She didn’t have to think about it now, she told herself. She didn’t have to come to terms with what this all meant. All she had to do was complete one entry on the form and then move on to the next one. She could do that.

  “Are you going to tell me what’s wrong?” Liam asked softly from his place on the bed. Whereas Kallie was fighting off an exhaustion that tugged at the corners of her eyes and made the feelings of sadness that much harder to take, Liam had been shut in his house for the better part of two days.

  It had been close to dawn when Kallie, her father, and Caleb made it back to her house to debrief, and Kallie had wanted to go speak with Liam to broach Caleb’s questions about allies. But she had only barely beaten the daylight to his house, and exhaustion hit her like a ton of bricks. When she awoke several hours later, it was
to a text message from her father saying that her mother was home sick, but that she seemed to be all right. Fretting, Kallie had turned on Liam’s computer and started the withdrawal paperwork for college. She’d known almost instantly that it was a mistake, but something told her that putting this off would be even worse. There was no going back, after all.

  “Kallie?” Liam came over to her, his touch light on her shoulder. “Did you hear me?”

  “Hmm?”

  “I asked, will you tell me what’s wrong?” His forehead wrinkled as he frowned at her. His blue eyes looked worried, searching her face for clues.

  “Will you?” Kallie countered.

  Liam had been quiet and withdrawn since she came over, seeming jumpy at first and responding to Caleb’s request with a distracted murmur that he’d see what the others said. There had been no anger, no protectiveness. He watched Kallie warily, and she could not figure out why. He’d been pacing for a while now, but when she asked what was wrong, he said nothing.

  “I can’t tell you yet,” he said simply. He held up a hand. “Kallie, you know that I would if I could. I took you to see the nest. I trust you. But this confidence is not mine to give up.”

  “Does it have to do with me?” Kallie asked. When his gaze slid away, she felt something drop away in the pit of her stomach. “Liam, if it has to do with me then it is my business. How can you not tell me?”

  “Because it isn’t my confidence to share,” he repeated seriously. She could see his distress, but he did not waver. “That person has reasons for not sharing what’s going on—and Kallie, those reasons are good.”

  “But it’s tearing you apart inside,” Kallie observed.

  “Doing the right thing can be difficult,” he said simply. “If it was easy, everyone would do it. There comes a time, though, if you’re very, very unlucky—” a rueful smile touched his mouth “—when you have to ask yourself whether your happiness, whether a great many people’s happiness, is worth more or less than doing the right thing.”