by Lucy Lyons
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
I could only have blacked out for a moment or two, but when I cleared the fog from my eyes, the first thing I saw was Josiah the vampire, with a werewolf in each hand, as he slammed their heads together and dropped them, skulls crushed, to the earth from fifteen feet above me. I shook my head to clear the remaining cobwebs and looked around for Goldie. I picked up her scent and lurched into the woods after it, picking up speed as my injuries healed at almost normal werewolf pace, which is to say that when I felt my left shoulder, rotating it in its socket, there was no pain, despite having almost had my arm torn off minutes before.
Good, I thought, I’m going to need all my strength to rip Skoll’s head off his shoulders. Goldie caught my thoughts and sent me images of her followed by a pack led by a steely grey wolf with eyes like ice. Skoll. I raced forward, sensing the presence of others nearby, and I knew the cavalry had arrived. Of the wolves, only Skoll and four of his soldiers remained, but it was enough to harm Goldie, and I was closer to her than any of them. I heard Josiah call out for her, and barked loudly, a sharp sound like a natural canine instead of a wolf, hoping he’d hear it and follow.
I switched from wolfman to full wolf form between steps and raced onward toward the clearing, following the scent of fear from my mate. Overhead, I heard the rushing of wings, and glanced up to see three vampires above me, flying with me. There was a sharp yelp of pain from Goldie just ahead and I could smell Carver and Skoll, as well as the remaining two wolves I didn’t know. I crashed through the briars at the edge of the clearing, feeling the brambles catch in my fur and pierce my skin as I shimmied through the last of them and into the clearing.
Ahead of me, Skoll had Goldie by the back of her neck, pinning her in a submissive position to take her by force. Red swam before my eyes and I roared and changed form again, clawed hands taking the place of my front paws as I stood on my hind legs and charged. The three remaining soldiers tried to block me, but in a blur of motion, the vampires swooped down from the sky and carried them off. I didn’t even look for where they went, just glued my eyes to Skoll as Goldie did her best to stop him from raping her, bucking and kicking out under him.
When I reached them I didn’t slow down, I just grabbed Skoll and tore him off my mate, taking a chunk of her with us. The sigh of her fur and blood on his muzzle drove my wolf insane, and I lost control of my beast, claws tearing his arms off and slashing him apart as he first howled and begged for mercy when he was too weak to maintain his lupine form. I dragged him to Goldie and threw him on the ground at her side, waiting for her to acknowledge my gift and tear out his throat, but she didn’t move, not even to open her eyes to me.
Without hesitation, I was back in my human form, checking her pulse and breathing. I found her heartbeat, but her breathing was so faint I couldn’t see her chest move with my human eyes. I screamed for help, and Josiah landed next to us, soaked in the blood of the wolf he’d fed from.
“He tore her throat. She’s lost too much blood, she can’t heal it herself,” I gasped, panicked. “I can’t call her back. I need your shirt. I need to stop the bleeding.”
He ripped off his already blood-soaked shirt and I pressed it to the wound, cursing myself for my carelessness. Skoll whimpered in the grass beside us and Josiah’s head whipped around to him, eyes glowing red and feral as he watched the blood rush from my enemy’s body.
“He doesn’t matter,” I hissed. “Taking him down is what distracted me in the first place. Now we have to save Goldie before we both lose her.” Wolves bayed closer to us, and I howled in response, pinpointing our location to them faster than scent could.
A black wolf, almost as dark as my jet fur, bounded into the clearing and shimmered, revealing Clay in black leggings and no shirt. He dropped to his knees and checked Goldie’s eyes, lifting and eyelid and nodding. He turned to Josiah ignoring me completely as I pressed the shirt to Goldie’s neck.
“You’ve fed?” He made it a question, and Josiah nodded.
“Yes, I fed from the black wolf’s enemies.” I glanced at Clay and back to the vampire. The oddly formal phrase seemed out of place and archaic, reminding me of how ancient the vampire likely was. It was chilling to hear his voice so ominous, but Clay simply nodded and knelt by my side.
“Help me turn Goldie to her human form. I don’t know how to ensure his blood gets down her throat if we’re pouring it into a canine muzzle.” I blanched and growled my disapproval, and the alpha placed his hand on my shoulder as Josiah took a menacing step toward me. “Their blood has healing powers for us too. It’s a vampire gift, Orson. Let him give her blood, then you will, then me. It’ll take us all to heal her, but first we have to change her back.”
“How?”
“The same way we tried to change you. Her wolf has taken over to protect her, and she’s too strong to slip back into human form even while unconscious.”
“Skoll changed back when I injured him badly enough, and hers are just as bad,” I said, my body going numb as I listened to the life fade from her, her heart beat limping and weak.
“His wolf is weak. He isn’t an alpha, is he?” I shook my head and he let out a deep breath. “Give me your blood and I’ll make the circle.” I reached out my forearm, expecting him to cut me, but he shook his head. “I can’t draw the blood of another alpha I’m not at war with, Orson. That is an offense I do not want to give.
I nodded and retrieved my arm, elongating one finger and sliding the claw through my skin from wrist to elbow, as I’d seen Caroline do with her knife. Blood welled, the scent fresh and metallic in my nostrils, and it poured out onto the earth. Clay did the same with his own arm and mixed his blood with the soil and my blood and drew runes in the mud it made. They sparked and glowed blue and he gasped, his face lighting up with pleasure.
“Now, put your hands on her and feel her humanity. Call to her, pull her to the surface. Goldie’s body was terrifyingly cold to the touch and I silently cursed myself again for not realizing how deep her wound would be in my rage and need to kill Skoll. “Stop thinking whatever it is you’re thinking and feel, Orson,” he chided.
I called to her, to her heart, focusing on her confusion, her rebellion, her love for Josiah and her pack. I delved deeper, to her deepest fears, of losing the family she’d finally made for herself, of being raped again because she was too weak to stop it. I saw in her unconscious thoughts the alpha Clay had killed to save her and her packmates from his depravity. A never-before depth of fury blinded me to anything else with the realization that she wasn’t healing herself because she preferred death to letting another wolf take her by force.
Somehow, Clay was sensing everything I was, and I heard him gasp and falter in the power he was pushing into her body. I held tighter, pulling her into my arms as unmanly tears slid down my cheek at feeling the anguish in her heart when she was caught and couldn’t fight the big wolf off.
“I’m sorry, Goldie,” I whispered to her. “I’m sorry I came to you, I’m sorry that I didn’t protect you. My tears landed on her fur, and I felt Clay or something riding the magic he’d created boost the power, and my next tear fell on a smooth, human cheek.
“Give her to me,” Josiah ordered in a raspy growl, his voice thick with emotion. He took her tenderly in his arms and bit his wrist, letting the blood drip onto her tongue and slide down her throat.
“I should be the one healing her,” I stammered, and he shot me a glare. “This is my fault, I should’ve been able to heal her.”
“No Orson,” Clay corrected me. “Wolf healing is amazing, but Vampire blood and saliva hold more healing properties.” He reached out and smoothed hair back from her face. “Let him help you save her.”
He saved me too, I wanted to say, but the words caught in my throat.
He feels guilty because in saving you, he allowed your enemy to catch Goldie, a voice in my head whispered. I glanced around to see Caroline in the arms of her husband, lighting on the ground behind us. Let him hel
p save her.
I glanced at Clay then back at Goldie. “Looks like the gang’s all here, Cherie. How ‘bout you open dem beautiful eyes and say hi to us?” My voice broke and I knelt forward, pressing my head to her chest, the vampire’s musty smell of death assailing my nose. Her heart beat was steady, and mine raced as I listened to it.
Clay pressed in with me and pushed me aside just far enough to listen too, and grabbed my shoulders, shaking me with inexpressible relief and joy. He was crying now, and grinned at me like a proud father.
“She’s doing better?” Caroline asked, and I nodded.
“You did pretty well, wolf, for being so new to the role of a true alpha.” It was Nicholas who praised me, and I ducked my head at the neck in a bow of deference to the vampire master.
“Thank you for sending your vampires to help her.”
“We sent help because she told us you were in danger,” he countered.
“And she told us she’d never forgive us if we let you die,” added Caroline. “Not that we needed the prodding,” she continued, “some of us are growing quite fond of you.”
“Truth,” whispered a familiar feminine voice, and I glanced at Goldie’s face. She was pale and her eyes were dull with pain, but she was awake, and the world fell away from us. I took her from the vampire and held her in my arms, mentally taking stock of her injuries as I caressed her hair.
“I’m sorry I looked so deep inside you without permission,” I told her. I whispered the words, even though we were surrounded by an ever-increasing number of preternatural creatures with super-hearing.
“You looked deep enough to find me,” she sighed. “I saw you, you were crying. You were in so much pain.”
She startled a laugh out of me, and I sniffed back a fresh set of tears. “You’re unmanning me, woman,” I murmured.
“No one could do that, macho McGee,” she scoffed, and touched my face. “I hate that I can’t hate you.” I nodded and glanced at Josiah, whose face was an unreadable mask.
“Your boyfriend saved my life. You never got around to telling him you’d survive my death, huh?”
I heard him snort and glanced at him again. “I’m well aware that Caroline put a magical mute on the tether between the two of you.” He stood and brushed off his slacks, his torso pale and gleaming snow-white in the moonlight. “However, I am also old enough to understand the value of such magic as the bond between you. Magic has been disappearing from the world as humans became the dominant species. We need to conserve what we have, protect it, nurture it. Killing you would have killed another piece of that.”
I gaped at him, astonished and humbled by his words. “Y’all vampires are pretty wise, compared to the stories I’ve been told.”
“Oh, those stories are true,” Nicholas assured me. “We simply refuse to be as unwise and violent as we once were.”
“I hope you haven’t given up all violence,” I replied, “because I really need your help.” The words caught in my throat like molasses, but as I choked them out over my still gravely wounded mate, I knew I was making the right choice. “Can you send help with me, to save my brother? I’ve got to believe he’s still alive.”
“I will do better than send help,” he replied, with a glance at Clay, who nodded in agreement. “We will have a better chance of surprising your alpha if we take my plane. Can you move, little golden one?” his voice went soft as he spoke to her, and I understood that Goldie was valued by all this clan, not just the wolves.
“No, but I’ve got a big, strong werewolf who can carry me.” One of Clay’s wolves dropped my duffle bag at Nicholas’s feet, and I glanced at Josiah, hesitating to ask him for anything else as he glowered down at his girlfriend in my arms.
“I have clothes in my bag, if you would like to use some,” I told him, and he nodded. The severe look on his face softened and I knew he’d accepted my truce beyond an article of clothing. I’d already let her go. As much as I wanted her body, admired her strength and resilience, lived for her smile, I was still just a strange wolf who’d shown up on her doorstep.
Clay took Goldie from me and I dressed in the leggings the lady Ash had given me and a fitted tank top. Clay explained the science behind the mesh that would slow claws and bullets, but would stretch (or shrink) to fit both the half-man were-form and human body. The leggings were tighter than I would’ve liked, and I threw on sweatpants over them happy to note that even layered, the clothing wasn’t cooking me. They’d really designed the perfect clothing for shifters.
“You should market these. I know a couple of panthers down around the way that would love them,” I joked as I took my mate back in my arms and pushed the bag toward him and Josiah with my foot.
Goldie was healing faster than I’d ever seen a werewolf heal before, and soon she adjusted her position so she could put an arm around my neck and sit upright more. It was a hike out to the caravan of Escalades parked on an old highway that led to the private airstrip we’d be flying out of, and I caught snippets of the conversation between Clay and Nicholas and Caroline, discussing flight plan and team roster for “Operation Retrieve Porter.”
“They look like they’ve done this before,” I said softly, suddenly uncomfortable carrying her as her wounds grew shut before my eyes, leaving only soft, delightfully yielding skin pressed against me. “I should’ve grabbed you something to wear, I’m so sorry.” She giggled and turned into me, pushing her breasts into my chest and wrapping her other arm around my neck so we were embracing.
“I’m not cold,” she teased as my body reacted to her and pressed into her hip. “Unless you’re embarrassed?”
“Not at all, just wondering how much longer I can hold you in my arms and not do something that would embarrass us both, not to mention your surrogate father, your boss, and your boyfriend.” When I got to Josiah, she flinched and pulled away and I swore under my breath, hating myself for saying anything. It was going to be a long flight if I had to share a row with the two of them, that was for sure.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
I wondered why the vampires had cell phones at all when I saw how efficiently Caroline put a team together via only her telepathy. We were met at the airstrip by a vampire named Colette, Caroline’s lieutenant and it looked to be best friend, with clothes for Goldie, four coffins, presumably empty, and several bags like mine, filled with weapons and ammunition. Colette also had a message for me from Henny, to leave behind some blood so she and her husband could study it and come up with a better medicine for soul-sickness. She drew her fangs and offered to bite me, but Goldie stepped between us with a growl, and she settled for a quick slice down my thumb pad with her short knife.
“If things don’t work out between you and little Goldie-locks, you can always come back and try it her way,” she teased as she corked the vial of my blood. “It’s been forever since I was with a male, but I think I’d give it a go for a big, strong wolf like you.”
Goldie spat and got in her face, but Clay barked at her and she backed down, pressing herself against me for comfort as the vampires giggled.
“Sorry, Clay, Colette’s been stuck at the club for weeks with no excitement. Maybe she should come with us, burn some of that energy off.” Nicholas sighed. Colette immediately tossed the vial to Caroline and saluted her.
“Gotta go, Mama, I’ll keep an eye on the master and make sure he gets back to you.” She pointed at a vampire so pale he must have been an albino in his human life. “Pater, you’re OK using my coffin while I take yours, right?”
The vampire shrugged and started toward the Escalade that had stayed behind to transport the few who were staying behind. “There’s nothing weird in it, is there, Colette?”
She flashed him a grin. “A few sex toys, maybe some cookies . . . whatever you use, wash or replace it as applicable.” He chuckled, waved her off, and climbed into the waiting car.
Clay had to stay behind with the she-wolf Ash, it was simply too close to her delivery date for him to leave her. Ca
roline had her and Nicholas’s baby to attend to, and the plane we were taking only seated eight plus the flight crew. That left us with Nicholas, Josiah, Colette, and a vampire named Andrew. From the werewolves, there was myself, Goldie, and Clay’s personal guard, Steven and Marcos. We were a small group, but armed better and more powerful than most of the wolves we were about to encounter.
I dug my phone out of my duffle before I stowed it and sat in a wide reclining seat with a cold beer at my elbow and waited for take-off. Porter had never contacted me, he may have been in captivity since the moment I left. Thaddeus had not bothered to call or text me either, even to threaten me, which worried me even more. Had he distanced himself from me to avoid consequences for murdering Porter, an innocent?
Goldie’s hand appeared in my view as she took the phone from me and slipped it into the pocket of her hoodie. “No good will come from you obsessing about what you don’t know. Focus instead on helping get us up to speed on what you do.”
Nicholas seated himself in the chair opposite mine and Goldie sat beside me, with Colette in the seat facing her. There was a table between us with cup holders, which the shifter flight attendant filled with a pop each for Goldie and me and tumblers of blood for the two vampires.
“What kind of animal are you?” I asked softly as she turned to go.
She grinned and glanced at Nicholas before answering. “I’m a wererat, one of Jeremy’s pack.” The smile faded as she continued. “I hope that doesn’t stop you from accepting my help.”