Blood Crown

by Tamara Rose Blodgett

  Tahlia lies on her back, relearning how to breathe, gazing at the deepening patches of blue visible through the thick canopy of trees.

  Finally, after she’s caught her breath, Tahlia pushes off with her palms, hiking herself up, and blows a leaf out of her hair.

  Moon, this is awful. Throat getting thick with tears and eyes burning, Tahlia tries to think of any one thing that’s been a positive in the last week of her life.

  Nothing comes to mind at first.

  Then eventually, she remembers Tessa and their budding friendship.

  Tahlia touches her lips, her traitorous mind recalling the soft press of Drek’s mouth on hers.

  Why did he have to be such a dick? Tahlia smiles, knowing where she heard that particular term.

  Tessa.

  Just like that, her mind falls back into thinking about Tessa and Laz, the arrogant demonic.

  Tahlia gnaws on her bottom lip. She did not behave well, really. Words like “rebellious” and “selfish whelp” come to mind. That’s what her guardians undoubtedly would have coined her conduct from start to finish.

  Sighing, Tahlia heaves herself to standing, dusting off her rear end.

  Her naked rear end. The realization makes the bottom drop out of her stomach, and she places a palm on her belly.

  Oh no.

  She’s back to being naked again.

  Smart, Tahlia.

  I shall not bawl my eyes out. I will not.

  Just then she hears a keening and cocks her head.

  Or maybe it’s the wind. Tahlia’s body automatically goes to quarter change. Senses evolve to a level not enjoyed by her human form.

  That’s better. Tahlia’s ears twitch forward, minutely shaped into points in her quarter-change. She is Lanarre royalty, so there is no pain with the change, except when shifting into her full wolf form.

  There. Whipping her head to the left, she hears the high wailing again.

  Tipping her head forward, Tahlia's jaw juts out. Is that... flesh being whipped?

  Closing her eyes, Tahlia concentrates on listening. Immediately, she detects a high whistle of a fast-moving object displacing the very air with its charge. Her eyes flash open.

  Her keen nose picks up the scent of fresh blood.

  Gooseflesh roils over her bare skin. I’m scared.

  Tahlia knows what direction the rendering of flesh and bloodletting is coming from.

  The Den of the Hoh Lanarre.

  Shivering, she wraps her arms around herself. Tahlia can’t go sauntering in there naked.

  A growl erupts from her body.

  She’s weak, in need of fuel after the rapid change from the bird form to human. And her body had to repair the damage from her short fall from the tree limb.

  I can’t go back there. Can’t.

  But Tessa’s there.

  And that sound was very familiar. It certainly had the right pitch. Could it be that they’re hurting Tessa?

  Even Drek wouldn’t be as debauched as that. And her being in heat, no less! A female is vulnerable to many things when the weight of heat is upon her. Any self-respecting Were would understand that basic fact.

  However, there were males of that pack bad enough to do those things. Tessa touches her cheek where the Lanarre struck her.

  Tahlia could never be a part of a den managed with so little regard toward its females. She’s acutely aware that females are scarce. To harm one borders on idiocy or in the most extreme case—genocide of the species.

  Tahlia thinks of Neil. He seemed to be moronic.

  She hears the sound again.

  Nostrils flaring, Tahlia scents game nearby and slips to wolfen. A pit of ravenous hunger springs deep within her belly. Her luminous eyes take in a nearby herd of elk that sense her too late. Crouching, she springs toward the tight pack of animals.

  Tahlia is royal and pragmatic. She is also swift, brutal, and bloody.

  But, regardless of the Lanarre’s possible presence, she must eat. The need to survive supersedes all others.

  She feeds, tearing into tender meat and bathing in the hot blood of arterial spray. She is quick, lapping the blood and eating the nutrient-dense organs first.

  When the body of the elk begins to cool, Tahlia stands, licking her lips and remaining in wolfen.

  Tahlia looks down at her body. Large, pendulous breasts sway with her movement. What identifies her as female, a slit between her thighs, is oddly hairless. And though she was reared to be unashamed of her nakedness while in this form—after all, it’s not like she looks anything like this in breedable form—a pang of shyness remains.

  Wolfen is the only form that she can assume because she doesn’t have any clothes, and she is most able to defend herself in this form. Changing this far from the moon would be torture, even for a Lanarre.

  Shifting her weight, Tahlia places her hands on her hips, feeling the sustenance beginning to build her back up. But it’s a slow process, and she is still weakened.

  Tahlia never wanted to see prince Drek again. Hanging her head, she allows an exhausted exhale to slide out. But she has to return to satisfy her concern for Tessa.

  If she does not, she might never forgive herself.

  Walking from the bloodied site, Tahlia turns. She crouches low and shoves off hard, heaving dirt and forest debris behind her as if scooped and tossed.

  Calculating she’s five miles or so from the Hoh den, Tahlia slows as she nears the pack.

  The scent of the pack infuses her, the brand of her own kind is powerful, and she scrunches her sensitive nose. But underneath the dominat smell of Lanarre is another scent.

  The metallic smack of blood is not of the Were.

  Frowning, Tahlia removes herself slightly from the trunk of the tree she’s hiding against and gazes at the sight, hoping she’s not scented before losing the element of surprise.

  Her eyes take in the massacred being before her. Blood flows like a current-less ocean from the limply hanging body, pooling beneath it, and smells like... Tahlia lifts her nose, closing her eyes and inhaling deeply. Her tongue lolls, and she attempts to taste the very air.

  It cannot be—Fey?

  Slowly opening her eyes, Tahlia continues to stare, the cogs of her mind turning furiously. Vampire and demonic blood is scentless, offering good camouflage from her kind.

  Who is this? Then she sees it: a hand rises from its hanging position, draped over two wood poles made into a makeshift cross.

  The creature has red flesh. Not bright red like the evil Praile. But a pale red similar to that of a female who might carry a blush on her cheeks.

  Sudden horror and fear grip her. Lazarus.

  What lack of mercy is this?

  Her head snaps to the left, and there Drek stands, chest heaving, his face wearing throwback specks of blood caused by the barbed ends like a splattered painter’s canvas.

  Rage descends like a shroud before Tahlia’s vision, and she trembles with the need to take action.

  However, she pauses. She was never a lover of Lazarus. But when Tahlia sees Tessa on her knees, snot and tears dampening her denims, she doesn’t think.

  Tahlia leaps. Twice.

  In the next moment, she’s on Drek’s back, sinking her teeth into the flesh connecting his neck and shoulder. Tahlia clings to him as talons burst from her fingertips, piercing Drek’s vulnerable flanks.

  He howls, body arching as he tries to buck her off.

  Strong arms grab her, and Tahlia takes a chunk of Drek’s shoulder as she’s torn from him.

  “Let me go!” she hears Tessa scream in the background.

  Tahlia’s thrown, and as she rolls through the air, hurtling toward the forest, she shifts to bird form.

  Her body bursts apart. The feeling of weightlessness is acute, painful, and instant. Feather’s explode, and her wings, wet from the change, spread. Hurts, she has time to think before another being grabs her.

  Capturing her leg, whoever it is jerks her out of the sky.

&nb
sp; Her wings push at the air, but the Were is too strong, and she’s just shifted, too weak to fight the downward pull.

  Twisting her head, Tahlia dives forward with her beak at the hand that holds her.

  Blood spurts from the deeply precise wound, arcing into the sky as the Lanarre male bellows.

  Hunger grips her anew, her body having metabolized her quick meal with the rapid change back to bird form.

  Not now!

  But biology asserts itself, and though Tahlia tries to fly higher, seeking the protection of the nearby branches, she falls in a slow spiral to the ground.

  Her chest rises and falls rapidly, her breathing labored.

  A foot rises above her bird form, and her tortured body emits a soft caw of distress—it’s all she can manufacture.

  Drek is suddenly there, a closing hole in his shoulder and ten punctures at his sides oozing blood. He shoves the Were away with both hands, sending the Lanarre slamming into a trunk two yards from them.

  Leaves shake loose from the nearby tree on impact, falling to the ground like green rain.

  Dropping to his knees, Drek reverently slides his hands underneath Tahlia’s tiny bird body.

  She’s physically under such deep stress, Tahlia can’t hold her form, and it melts away, leaving her human.

  Drek adjusts his hold, spreading his hand under her naked body and gathering her into his lap.

  Growling Lanarre snap and froth all around her.

  But Drek’s strong arms keep her safe as a wave of his dominance lays hold on all who circle them.

  They fall to their knees in subjugation.

  She hates him for hurting her friends. Tahlia hates her body’s betrayal as it lies docilely within his embrace when all she wants is to escape again.

  But she is unable.

  Instead, among all the yapping, growling, and blood, she feels herself slip away, sliding into the exhausted blackness of forced unconsciousness.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Bray

  “Don’t tell me what the fuck I know and don’t, got it?” Bray seethes, spittle dotting his lips. Why? Because he’s in a fucking insane rage—that’s why.

  How dare these bag of assholes not believe him.

  He’s fucking Were; his goddamned nose never lies.

  Of course, this is the problem. When you’re a rogue pack, you’ve got to just go with the flow. There’s no protection, and if you’re made—not born—like Bray, you’re doubly fucked.

  Who would ever think, fluke of fucking flukes, that ex-cunt of his would not only be able to hide the fact she spit out his kid, but that sheʼd be in league with a rogue female.

  He and his bros thought it’d be easy fucking peasy to squeeze the chickie, that Devin would cave because she’s a simp of a woman. Then they would rob Mickey Ds and grab some quick cash, funding his habit neat as fuck.

  Bray had his ear to the ground and knew for a fact that a particular den down south was leaderless.

  They needed leadership, and Bray, by God, was going to give it.

  But first, he needed a little start-up capital. His tidy drug habit needed refueling too. Hell, this Were gig is stressful shit.

  He’d been smart enough to find out all the little weasels who sold local. But he had to pay. Sure, he could have offed them, but then where would he get his next fix?

  So he had to advance his plan.

  Bray figured stupid Devin, puppy dog that she always was, would get scared and cave to whatever he wanted, as usual.

  She wasn’t using, though. Then there was the problem of that bitch, Jenni.

  His bud, Earl, who is also Were, continues to yammer on about shit that doesn’t matter. “Listen,” Bray interrupts him mid-snivel, “I don’t give a ripe fuck if there’s Alphas down at the Northwestern. They can fucking try me.”

  Bray feels his eyes slip to wolfen at the “T” on try me, and Earl’s widen at the change.

  “Okay,” he says, trying to placate Bray with a softer tone of voice.

  That’s better, ass wipe, Bray thinks as he blows cigarette smoke in the other Were’s face.

  Earl swipes the vapor cloud away.

  Bray chuckles. Damn, too many victims for entertainment, but not enough time.

  Earl frowns, going on, “I hear ya. I know it was raw to have that bitch kick our asses.”

  Bray’s jaw clenches, and he folds his arms.

  “But,” he inserts quickly before Bray loses his ever-loving mind, “she was so fresh a turn, we didn’t scent her.”

  “Would’ve fucked her into next month, heat or no heat,” Bray murmurs, taking another hard drag on his cig.

  “Ah, right. Facts are—we didn’t. Then you follow up, and looky, looky...” Earl’s light eyebrows rise. Looks like a fucking albino. Sick as fuck.

  “Looky, looky? What are ya? Four?”

  Earl shakes his head, giving a puff of irritation. “Anyways, you find out ya got a kid.”

  Bray taps his nose. “Scented her right through the glass of Devin’s beater car.”

  Earl jerks his head in an absent nod. “So now they’re on the run. Devin, your kid, and this new... I don’t know... complication.”

  “She can’t complicate shit if she’s dead,” Bray states with calm efficiency.

  Earl seems to think. Wonders never cease. “Can’t kill female Were, man. It’s against—I don’t know—everything, Bray.”

  “Not if they don’t find out.”

  Neither one of them talk about the stuck-up pack of Lanarre who have territory up their ass.

  “Bray, come on... we’re already rogue, me, you, and Billy. That’s enough notice. I don’t want the fucking added heat of murdering a female Were, for fuck’s sake.”

  “I didn’t sign up for the born Were’s adoration of the fairer doggie sex.” Bray plugs his thumb into his chest hard enough to hurt. “We didn’t ask to be turned into fucking werewolves,” he shouts.

  “I know, Bray,” Earl replies in a loud voice. “We’re the only ones who survived. The Were were violent—murderous. They killed Jay and Ted. We were lucky we got out with our asses intact.”

  “I don’t feel lucky,” Bray says. “I feel like I want a bump.”

  “Fuck the drugs for once. We gotta get out of here, head south. Head those bitches off at the pass.”

  Bray points his cig at Earl, nearly jamming it up his nose.

  Earl jerks his face back from the red ember.

  “Don’t call my daughter a bitch.”

  “I wasn’t really including the kid.”

  “Good,” Bray says, chopping the word off with an ax. “Because Devin’s out of the picture. How good of a mom can she be anyway? Former drug user, goth, fucking emo? God, she works at McDonald’s! She’s not doing dick for our kid. The only thing she’s gonna be finding herself doing is handing over my flesh and blood.” Bray squeezes his hand into a fist for emphasis and crushes the burning cig.

  Unclasping his fingers, he finds the ember is still burning, making a hole in his palm. Singed flesh colors the air, and he tosses the ash to the ground, toeing it with his thick-treaded boot, twisting hard.

  Opening his palm, he glances at the deep burn mark. As he watches, the blackened skin fades, turning to a healing pink.

  The hole closes before his eyes, and the skin begins to plump up, turning to scar tissue.

  Tomorrow, it’ll be like it never happened.

  “There are some bennies to being a Were.” Bray can think of a few. Like revenge. “Still don’t have capital.”

  “Gotta have money to head south. Need to make a good impression.”

  Bray barks out a laugh. “Yeah, those fuckers down there will so be into us. I mean”—Bray puts both thumbs to his chest—“we’re turned, not born. There will be all kinds of enthusiasm over that.” Bray slaps his own head. “Think, Earl. They don’t care that we’re all werewolves. We weren’t born into their little community.”

  “The women are accepted,” he points out. “Born
or turned.”

  “Different,” Bray waves Earl’s comment away as he lights up another cancer stick. “They can’t be turned easy. There aren’t very many bitches born, either.”

  “They’re not so choosy when it comes to Were pussy. As long as it’s Were.” Bray snorts, radically changing the subject. “We rob some other place, I get a hit of something good, and we head down there. Billy comes too.”

  “Billy’s crazy,” Earl says quietly.

  Bray gives him a sharp look. “Yeah, so?”

  “I don’t think we should take him. He does shit—shit we can’t anticipate.”

  “You let me worry about, Billy, ʼkay?”

  Earl nods slowly.

  “I know just the place to get cash.”

  “Where?” Earl frowns.

  “Devin’s parents.”

  “What?” Earl looks genuinely confused.

  “Because I’ve been making it so they think she’s still on the streets, using. Thought it might come in handy later.”

  “That’s fucking evil, even for you.”

  Bray tips his head back, blowing a single stream of smoke into the air. “Yeah.” He laughs. “They wanted to believe so fucking bad that dumb Devin got her pathetic act together. Which she did.” Bray feels the cruel smile twist his lips.

  “So how come you can get money from them?”

  “They got a ten thousand dollar reward for proof of a ʻDevin sighting.ʼ”

  Earl’s brows snap together. “She lives two hours from them.”

  Bray nods happily. “Yup. Thing is, I’ve been sending them photos from when Devin was using. They’re old, but they don’t know that morsel. Every time I call their hotline, I send proof, and they race to track her down.”

  “Poof,” Earl says, his hands making fluttering fingers like a bird flying away, “she’s just not there.” Earl makes kissing noises. “Oh too bad, so sad.”

  Bray points at him. “Now you’re waking up.”

  “Anyways?” Earl asks.

  “Anyway, I have a few pics of her sober now too. Broke into her place and stole a photo of my kid. Gonna go by the parentsʼ house and stick it in their noses, get the reward money and run.”