Blood Crown

by Tamara Rose Blodgett

  She blinked it away, and a wolf-man was holding her. He looked strangely like Quillon, but not.

  Jenni was like him, but smaller. She whimpered.

  Then the moonlight swept over them both, and she was gone.

  The next morning, Jenni found herself in a naked pile. Not shivering as she should have been but warmed by a very naked Quillon, who was wrapped tightly around her, his giant erection between them.

  God.

  Awkward didn’t cover it.

  Jenni shakes herself out of the vision. That was two days ago, and every time Quillon and she share a meal, their fingers accidentally brushing, it’s like a lightning strike, setting the forest inside her body on rabid fire.

  Right to her heart.

  But she can’t trust a man, not fresh off the breakup with Lance. And Quillon isn’t even a man, not really.

  Of course, she’s no longer the woman she used to be, but something else.

  Knowing the direction she has to go, the misunderstandings her actions will cause, Jenni is crushed beneath the guilt. But she has to protect him, Ella, and Devin—hell, the pack that’s already been so good to her. If Jenni leaves, Bray can’t use her.

  She knows deep down that he hasn’t left the area. Just like Quillon predicted, he’s coming after what he sees as his: Ella.

  Her heart squeezes. Jenni’s sure that Quillon wouldn’t be like Lance. But there’s no guarantee. She’s learned her lesson, and she won’t chance it.

  But it hurts like hell. That potential for love unrequited.

  Quillon stroked her jaw tenderly last night when he sat beside her at the meal.

  The gesture felt so comfortable. So right. Them sitting together. Sharing a meal with the other Were. She puts a hand to her chest, as if she can hold her aching heart inside.

  The Northwestern den was starting to feel like home. There is such a thing as a broken heart.

  Jenni knows because her heart physically hurts.

  That’s why Jenni starts to wander off the path, shifting her borrowed backpack stuffed with provisions to the middle of her back. The note she left behind in a prominent place in Quillon’s place—he can’t miss it.

  Maybe she’ll just cruise back up to PT and see how things have shaken out.

  She isn’t without resources. But Jenni isn’t dumb enough to assume she would get her butt up there and the cops wouldn’t still be seeking her, wanting answers. Ones she can’t give.

  The entire scenario is depressing. Immersed in her thoughts as she is, Jenni doesn’t pick up on the scent right away.

  Then the sweet smell of metal reaches her nostrils. Instinctively, she recognizes the scent of blood. A scent unique among all others. Seeing it splashed against a nearby tree trunk, she instantly recoils from the dual sensory overload of both visual and scent.

  Werewolf.

  A Were was killed here. One of ours, she automatically thinks. Fresh too.

  Fear thrills through Jenni, her eyeballs going everywhere at once.

  Then they appear like flesh water between the trees—Bray and his two stooges.

  She should have anticipated that the instant she tried to evade, they would be here.

  “Dee-lish,” the guy who looks kind of like an albino states, nostrils flaring as he scents deeply of her.

  Jenni doesn’t feel complimented a bit.

  “You killed one of the scouts,” she states in a dead voice. Was it Brady or Dunham?

  Bray nods happily. “Yup,” he verbally punches out. “You think you can get out of being our decoy if you split? You’re so dumb.” His eyes narrow on her arrogantly.

  Jenni’s had enough. Enough of his foul scent. Enough of his derogatory language. Enough of his compensating behavior, for his obvious small-penis problem. Well, it’s not her problem. “Listen up, you thug,” she says, channeling her parents’ old term.

  Thug describes Bray perfectly.

  Bray’s comically surprised face is worth it, even though she clearly intuits what he’ll do the second his hands are on her.

  “I am not dumb. I will never be dumb.” That wasn’t her bragging. It’s fact. And when she mentally compares herself to these three losers, a bark of laughter escapes.

  Bray’s eyes are slits of hate as they take her in. Scheming and planning. It’s clear, even from their brief acquaintance, that Bray hates women because he’s threatened by them. There’s no other rational explanation, and Jenni is a super-rational sort of human being. She’s had to be. Being a werewolf hasn’t released her from that headspace.

  Albino creep sidles closer.

  Jenni shifts to quarter-change, a trick Adi showed her the minute her body didn’t feel like it had gone through a meat grinder after her first full shift.

  She already did quarter-change by accident before her first full shift, but choosing to shift struck Jenni as better than “accidentally” shifting to any form.

  With a grunt of pain, her talons burst from her hands, and tears spring to her eyes. Jenni is still so physically raw from her shift under the full moon, she can hardly think through it.

  Whipping her hands far from her sides, she flings off the loose skin from the talonsʼ exit.

  “Nice,” Albino asshole says then adds in a low growl, “Bring it, bitch.”

  She will. “I know you can take me down, but who wants to lose their teeny-tiny walnuts first?” Her smile is sly, and her talons make soft music as they click together.

  Goading.

  Jenni had nothing to lose before. She hasn’t changed her mind since becoming a Were. She hasn’t gotten used to the idea of living yet.

  Death is still more real than life.

  They break into their wolfen forms, coming for her. Jenni swallows her fear. Instincts she never had before take over.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Quill

  Maybe it’s because the moon is full and his body’s itching to change again. Quill’s been uneasy as fuck all morning. He’s eaten his breakfast, shit, showered, and shaved, and now he’s forcing himself to relax outside the sanctuary when all he really wants to do is seek her out.

  He’s tried with some success to give Jenni her space. His beast doesn’t want to, though. Hell—he doesn’t want to.

  Restlessness isn’t quite how he would describe the subtle burn between his shoulder blades, the itch that’s screaming at him, saying something bad is coming. Quill’s not some dumbass—he’s prepared. He knows that fucker Bray will be making an appearance.

  No Were could resist the pull of their own blood, turned or not.

  Quill has run his scouts ragged with patrols in anticipation of that eventuality. They’re exhausted.

  He can’t afford to use Sebastian or Dare—too risky. He needs the really great fighters here where their females are.

  Now there are an additional number of females. That’s great news, but it also means responsibility. When it was only Nova and Susan, Quill felt comfortable having Dunham and Brady as his only scouts and sending off Stewart and Hob to scout for females for the Northwestern.

  He suddenly feels undermanned because Quill could never have anticipated three females being dropped into his lap. And though Devin certainly doesn’t have much Were blood, she has enough to breed—as proven from the little one. And Quill’s not really counting Adi because she’s mated, and Slash is highly capable.

  He’s actually glad Slash and Adi are here.

  There will be no fight for ascension from the Red. Highly unusual. Quill was as tense as a cat in a room full of rockers when word came that Adi had returned—along with her Red mate.

  As it turns out, Slash is looking to get along to get along. Happy to have higher numbers than the ones afforded to just the two of them. And her being with whelp? Any male, especially an Alpha, would want their immediate future secured with that looming in the horizon.

  Scrubbing a hand over his hair, Quill feels a familiar, stabbing guilt. The Northwestern just doesn’t have the pack members to rotate du
ties with sufficient down time for his males.

  Quill’s got low fucking numbers, and he damn well knows it. Not by design, but by fluke.

  Nothing’s been the same since Tony Laurent and their Alpha’s death. Lawrence was a fucker—most Alphas are to a certain degree—but he ran a tight ship, albeit traditional. That’s one of the things Quill wants to change. The Were can't continue fighting for ascension. The ancient rite is so archaic, it is no longer relevant.

  Lycans need to face the bald facts—they don’t have the males to sacrifice to such practices.

  Change is critical. Inevitable.

  Sitting on a carved wooden bench outside the sanctuary, Quill hangs his head. Convincing other legit packs of the necessity for change will be difficult. None of them want to change. Change is threatening. Even with all the facts and benefits laid out before them, Lycan as a species, resists.

  “Cousin,” Dare says by way of greeting, plunking his ass beside Quill and leaning back. He plops his elbows on the back of the wood bench like wings and crosses his feet at the ankle.

  “Hey,” Quill greets, unable to keep the weariness out of his voice. It’s hard work denying the heart’s desire of his beast.

  “What’s got you so down in the mouth?” He wags deep-auburn eyebrows. “You got to get all naked and personal with our newest female.”

  Quill glares at him.

  Dare leans forward and whips up his hands in a placating gesture.

  “Where’s Sebastian?” Quill asks, ignoring the bait.

  “Babysitting.”

  Good. Devin and Ella are safe for now, and he revisits Dare’s comment. “I saw Jenni through her first shift. That’s it.”

  “Yeah, you did,” he drawls, brows hiked.

  “Fuck. Off. This isn’t about mating.”

  Lies, lies, and more lies. Everything is about mating. If you’re male, it’s all about the females.

  Dare’s nostrils twitch, flaring hard. “You can deny all ya want, but the truth is that you reek like Were pheromone straight off the shelf.”

  Quill accepts that he can’t keep his mating scent in check. Hell, he thinks he was done for the first time he laid eyes on that female.

  Of course, Jenni doesn’t recognize Quill as her life partner. She’s been a Were for less than two weeks and thinks he’s pushy, unfiltered, and a raging walking hormone.

  She’s about right, too.

  He touched her last night at supper, just barely, unable to help himself because of her nearness, and she flinched away from the barest touch of his finger to her jaw.

  Still, Quill scented the flame of her desire. It was almost as if... Jenni was denying herself.

  Denying them.

  But how could that be? They didn’t know each other before that fateful meeting at Forest Beach. That was their first interaction as Were. At every turn, Quill tried to be solicitous when what he really wanted was that female in his bed, beneath him as he rode her hard, claiming her.

  She’s been human her entire life and Were for about four point five seconds. Jenni does not understand their kind yet. He cannot behave with her as he could with females born Were.

  And Quill is not one of those piece-of-shit Were who take what is not freely given. No, he would court her as in the ways of old. And that stance takes patience. Something Quill is not known for.

  He knots his hands between his knees. Stewing.

  “Must suck to be an Alpha.” Dare exhales, leaning back again, and Quill wants to punch him. Punching Dare out is going to get him in a fight he doesn’t need and really doesn’t even want, though.

  “I’m all fucking wound up,” he admits.

  “Really?” Dare asks sarcastically then looks at him. “So are you going to ask?”

  Fuck.

  After a full minute has passed, Quill finally asks quietly, “Where’s Jenni?”

  “Taking her daily walk.”

  That sense of unease uncoils inside his guts, moving firmly to full-fledged dread.

  “Not a fan. Nope.”

  Quill sits upright on the bench, trying to rest after eating Susan’s huge lunch. It’s really the only time he allows himself to be still—outside of sleep.

  Dare searches his face then says, “Ya can’t keep her under lock and key, Quill. We’ve got Brady and Dunham scouting.”

  “They’re young.”

  Dare shrugs. A patch of sunlight pierces the thick trees surrounding the sanctuary, casting a rope-like beam on his neck. “They’re who we got.”

  Quill nods, moving out of the light, effectively shading his eyes as he looks to Dare. “I can’t spare you and Sebastian for relief shifts.”

  Standing, Dare claps Quill on the shoulder. “Don’t sweat it. Slash said he’d start rotating. He’s only been here two days, and already, he sees what it is.”

  “He’d have to be blind not to.” Quill smirks, dredging for humor. “We don’t have enough males, and that turned psycho has the definite potential to show up here.”

  “The drug-using Were.” Dare snorts.

  “Yeah.” He turns in Dare’s direction. “Don’t underestimate him. He was turned for a reason by legitimate Lycan. Probably as a warning or in retribution for some crime.” He lifts a shoulder, going on. “This Bray was a criminal in his human life, from what Devin says, and he’s not going to clean up his act as a Were.”

  “Probably not,” Dare agrees then says, “You see him coming here?”

  Quill nods, giving him a hard look. “Oh, yeah. I would.”

  Dare shoots him back a mirrored expression. “You think he’s Alpha?”

  “Better to assume so, just in case.”

  With a rough exhale, Dare says, “It’d be great if he wasn’t.”

  Quill gives an abrupt laugh. “Yup. But luck doesn’t factor in, not really. Contingency does.”

  “Plan B and all that shit.” Dare snorts.

  “Exactly.”

  They exchange a glance and laugh.

  Suddenly, Quill sits bolt upright.

  “What?” Dare says in alarm, nostrils instinctively flaring hard.

  Saying nothing, he stands and closes his eyes, whipping out a hand toward Dare in the universal gesture for silence.

  There.

  Off in the distance a faint wail can be heard.

  Feminine.

  Jenni.

  Quill’s eyes snap open, and he leaps off the deck, Dare at his heels.

  Trouble has found them.

  And moon help whoever thinks to harm a hair on his female’s head.

  Dark Master

  He must quietly abide the Sidhe who accompanies the Rare One and her king. Nevertheless, Dark Master grows weary of the falsity and finds the arrogance of Lachlan tiresome. Not only that, he has a primal itch of massacring the Rare One that is yet to be scratched.

  It is one thing for Dark Master to feel supreme in all things, but for another being to feel compelled to prove their prowess, as the fey does... well, it rankles Dark Master. However, his countenance is of utmost importance, and having thoroughly rifled through his host’s bank of memories, Dark Master understands that Victor was largely benevolent.

  It’s a slow torture to him, as that character trait is the opposite of who he has been since time immemorial.

  Now the big Sidhe stops their forward march.

  Dark Master is aware of the reason, of course.

  This location is the exact spot where Dark Master's minions left him to stagger to where he eventually found refuge inside their little fey mound.

  This place—with its snug nest of nearly leafless trees and short, tired brownish grass—boasts a veil between realms as thin as a sheet of paper.

  Lachlan curls his lips, nearly bloodless against all that black skin. Extracting his long sword from the sheath at his hip, he brings it high before plunging it into the soil beneath.

  Dark Master hides his sigh of acute contentment as steam rises from Below. Sulfuric vapors curl around the metal of the sword
like opaque fingers seeking a victim.

  Jerking the sword from the ground, Lachlan whips out a pure white cloth and begins to clean the clumps of dried earth from the magicked blade.

  “Here,” he announces in a clipped tone, indicating the puncture wound to the earth with a stiff check of his chin. His shocking white hair has the illusion of appearing almost shorn if it weren’t for the fact that Dark Master has seen the tail of his braid, falling nearly to the male’s waist.

  He would like to hold Lachlan to the stone plateau by that long plait of vanity.

  Yes indeed. It’s a most excellent anchor for pinning his victim just so.

  The Rare One walks forward slowly, her hand moving to cover the spore within.

  Dark Master uses Victor’s mouth to curve into a smile.

  She will be inside his realm, where he is most powerful. It’s all that he can do not to shove her inside the hole the fey warrior made, for it widens as though beckoning the loathsome Rare One inside.

  The piercing blow with the metal forged of ancient magicks causes a rift, which widens even as he watches.

  Fantastically, he doesn’t burst into useless tears as the first tendrils of his realm’s lovely air reach his nostrils.

  Somehow, he refrains.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Tahlia

  Tahlia understands that Bowen is practically a whelpmate to Drek. But this is ridiculous. They’ve been going round and round about the same points.

  “My prince,” Bowen says in such a biting way, it sounds more like anger than true deference, “you cannot run off to another den because your unclaimed chosen has an attachment to a rogue Alpha female who selected a demonic as her mate—instead of one of us.”

  So that’s it—because a female would dare to mate with a non-Were. Eschewing the magnificent Lanarre.

  Approaching Bowen, she inserts herself between him and Drek. She pokes her index finger straight into his sternum. Tahlia happens to know her strength is impressive, especially for one so small.

  He does a small stagger backward, expressive dark eyes widening then narrowing.

  “You”—she pokes him again, sending him back another step—“have said enough. If Drek is truly prince of the Hoh, let him decide what reason he deems worthy of travel.”