by Kari Gregg
Peter grinned slick triumph. “Ha.”
“That was a sneaky rotten trick.” The boy jabbed at Peter’s sides with sharp elbows and scuttled precious inches away. “Mom, Uncle Pete cheated!”
“If Scott shifts, you’ll be the one to deal with him.” A plump blonde feeding wood into the central fire spared a brief glance at the tussle. “I mean it, Pete.”
Peter pounced on the boy. “Beg for mercy!”
You could almost forget that the whole lot of them were naked.
Almost.
A pair of women, naked, skinned a jackrabbit and tossed the bloody carcass to a teenage boy, also naked, who slit the stomach and scooped out still steaming entrails.
A toddler, endearingly naked, slept on a pile of blankets near the fire, thumb tucked into her pink mouth.
An older boy of ten, sullen and very naked, kicked at a stack of kindling and glared furious mutiny at a girl, prepubescent, but alas, naked, who stuck her pink tongue out at him while she draped the earbuds of a tinnily thumping iPod around her neck.
Gwen Stefani. No shit.
Kate was sure her eyes had popped out of her head.
The best thing to do was back away. Return to the small room she shared with Garrick. Quietly. So no one would see her. Just lift the comforter a bit so she wouldn’t trip and back sloooooowly—
“Shifting rips clothes they can’t afford to replace, so they do without them in camp. Clothing is an affection of humans and vampyr, but not weres. Most of them consider clothes annoying, uncomfortable, and unnatural. Several have argued that covering the body God blessed us with is a sin.”
She jumped, a choked squawk emerging from her throat, then scrambled to anchor the comforter around her when it slipped down one shoulder.
Garrick stood, gloriously naked, at the other side of the fire. “Kate.”
“Don’t make a big deal of it. You won’t embarrass the weres, but you could offend one or two of them.”
“The pack wondered when you might make an appearance.”
She kept her stare centered on Garrick when she lurched forward. As long as she looked into his eyes, she wasn’t looking at…at…
Nope, she was better off focusing on Garrick’s face.
His lips curved in open affection. His eyes glimmered, brimming over with love. Her fingers itched to brush away the lock of hair that had fallen over his forehead. “I appear to be overdressed,” she said, moving into his arms.
He brushed her temple with a kiss, hugged her to his side. “No. You’re perfect.”
“They understand. We are not weres, after all. Your body is just for me.”
She arched an eyebrow. “And you?”
He sank to a pile of blankets and gently pulled her down with him. “Pridemore’s weres have seen my body for centuries. Covering it at this late date would seem bizarre to them.” He frowned. “If it bothers you…”
“No,” she said slowly as she cuddled into his chest, cherishing the strength of his arms around her. “Well, maybe.”
“Yes.”
“Okay.” He tugged the comforter firmly around them both.
Peter laughed, and this time, his dark eyes sparkled wry amusement at them instead of the squealing boy he’d hefted to his shoulder. “Modesty, Garrick?”
He smiled into her eyes. “I prefer dignified.”
“Aidan will like that.” Peter eased the boy down to the ground. He playfully swatted his rear to nudge him toward two other fussing whelps. “A member of the council shouldn’t mix with mangy were rabble.”
“I like mangy were rabble.” Kate sniffed at Garrick’s neck, the steady pump of blood under his pulse both innervating and comforting. “You’re on the council now?”
“We both will be.” He tipped his chin to give her seeking mouth better access. “Every vampyr gains a seat on the council upon mating.”
“Mangy were rabble,” Peter said, still snickering. “But you chose Garrick too. Doesn’t say much for your taste.” He made tsking sounds in the back of his throat and planted his fists on his hips. He shook his head in mock regret. “You’ll have to keep a watchful eye on your mate, Garrick. She’s exhibiting a distinct lack of judgment in her associations.”
“Some”—Garrick moaned softly when she only smirked at Peter, then let her teeth slice into Garrick's neck—“might say sitting on the council is a poor association.”
“No were is saying it. Thinking it. But not saying it.” Peter plopped down on the comforter next to them, groped for Kate’s hand. “Bloody war. Bloody vampyr politics.” He played with her fingers. “Stand or fall, the pack is with you.”
Garrick arched an eyebrow. “We’ll never be able to return to our home in Louisiana now that the dark masters have found it. Pridemore is lost.”
“But you didn’t lose us.” Peter laid his head on his thigh. “You’ll make another home for us. If you haven’t already.”
Garrick grunted, stroking Peter’s hair.
Vampyr thought weres primitive?
Savage?
Uncivilized?
Had any of his own kind ever placed so much trust in him, had so much faith? With so little reason?
Peter had lost his home. The whole pack had. The were camp at Pridemore hadn’t been much by human or vampyr standards, just a collection of campers and trailers in a useless patch of swamp, but Pridemore had represented the peace and security that forever eluded weres. Because vampyr masters had hunted them. For sport. Yet generation after generation, his weres had never faltered from his side. Many of Peter’s forebears numbered among Garrick’s fondest and most loyal friends. As did Peter. “Everyone’s accounted for then? No stragglers?”
“No.” Peter shrugged a lazy shoulder. “Luc and Elise haven’t made it yet, but theirs was the longest, most circuitous route. They should take another day or two.” He shifted, exposing his throat. Not to offer his blood. Garrick had fed richly upon rising. No, Peter offered him his tender, vulnerable neck to show his devotion. “We’re all here, to the last whelp. Wherever you go, we will follow.”
Garrick traced a finger up and down Peter’s throat. “Good.”
With Kate sipping at him and Peter’s love unshakable, even in this dry, barren cave in the rocky desert, he had never felt so content. “When Luc arrives, the four of us will decide.”
“Decide what?” Kate asked. She licked the wound she’d made on his neck.
Once he’d committed to the cause of the slaves, Garrick had never questioned his loyalty to the rebellion. His single-minded goal, his purpose for centuries, had been to acquire a mate to gain his seat on the council. He’d fought endlessly. Rogues. Masters. Himself. He’d worked to persuade the others to accept the weres. To give them all a chance to win the war and gain their freedom.
But now, there was Kate.
And his responsibility to his weres had never weighed heavier.
“We’ll decide where we go from here.”
Chapter Nineteen
Garrick moaned in his sleep, forehead furrowing at the tight, agonized cry echoing in his mind.
“Must not call Garrick. Must not call Garrick. Must not—”
Cold sweat beaded his skin.
“Oh, God. Please. Not again.”
His back bowed, body writhing inches from Kate’s, blankets tangled and twisted around his hips.
“Not my eyes. Dear God, not my eyes!” Desperation and fear pitched the voice higher, the thoughts pushing louder, faster into his skull. “Must not call Garrick. Must not call Garrick.”
His hands fisted in the sheets.
“No. Don’t!”
He bolted upright at the mental scream, heart rocketing in his chest. His eyes flashed open.
And the scream went on.
And on.
* * *
Kate picked her way through the maze of rooms to the were camp in the central cave. She rubbed her hands together to try to stop the shaking, but her stomach trembled. Her pulse madly raced. “Garri
ck?”
The glow of the campfire flickered against the walls ahead, but no busy noises greeted her as she neared. No children laughed. No murmurs of muted conversation, no footsteps of sentries coming and going to their posts, no click of firewood gathered, none of the camp sounds she’d grown so quickly accustomed to.
Fear unfurled in the pit of her stomach, made her belly roll sickly, but she walked into the camp with determined steps.
The weres stared at her, unblinking, even little Scott, the most mischievous of the whelps. Wary sorrow glimmered in their preternatural eyes as she came to a shuddering halt. Her fingers rose to twist, like nervous birds, at the base of her neck. “Garrick?”
“Here, love.”
He sat on a barrel someone had scavenged from God knew where. Elbows on his knees, he rubbed a hand over his eyes. The pack’s fighting males surrounded him, rubbing his calf with a pale cheek, curled at his feet, desperately tucked into his side. Peter’s head lay on his thigh, while tears streamed from his were eyes, all the worse for the silence of the alpha’s weeping.
She didn’t need any special sense to feel the grief that tore through all of them, including Garrick.
Especially Garrick.
She stumbled to him, dropped to her knees. Clasping his meaty wrists, she pulled his hands away. Swollen and red, his crystal blue eyes stared bleakly back at her.
“It’s real, then.”
“They killed Elise first. They cut the twins she was carrying from her body and—”
“Peter.” Garrick’s hand descended, fingers skimming his hair. He turned his face into Garrick’s side and sobbed. “I’d hoped the link between Luc and me was the stronger, that I could shield you from the worst of his…” His voice trailed off, dazed with a hurt too great and too horrible to comprehend. “I failed him. And now, I’ve failed you too.”
She reached for him, cradling his jaw in her palm and leaned forward until their foreheads kissed. His pain-wracked eyes saw nothing save her and she him. “I know now why winning the war is so important to you. What they’re doing to him…” She shuddered, blinking tears from her eyes because Garrick needed her to be strong.
“But you haven’t failed me, Garrick. I haven’t felt a connection to Luc in days. It’s not his thoughts I’m sensing, and I thank God for that. I thank merciful God that you’re able to shield them from me, because I don’t think I could bear his torture. But it’s not his pain I’m feeling. Not his. It’s yours. Do you understand?”
“I understand you are hurting. As is he. And it is my fault.”
“No.”
“I’m your mate. It’s my right to share this burden with you.” She shook him. Hard. “As it was Luc’s right to share the burden of seeing to my safety until our mating had finished. We all have responsibilities, each for one another, and we welcome them as evidence that our love is active and strong. This is not your fault.”
“You don’t know. You couldn’t.” He sought her lips for comfort. “Masters don’t work together. Two sometimes strike a temporary alliance, to achieve a single, short-term purpose. Perhaps to destroy a nest of freed slaves. But that’s rare. Very rare.”
He drew back deliberate inches, a world of hell shining in his blue eyes. “Four masters are holding Luc. Four. They’re torturing him in hopes his agony will draw us to them. They grabbed Luc to get to me.”
* * *
Aidan arrived at dawn.
The prince strode into the cave like visiting royalty. Which Kate supposed he was, in his weird vamp way. But when he looked so cool, so calm, every hair in place, Armani-slick and smooth down to the tips of his Italian shoes, she couldn’t help the resentment that slapped at her.
Garrick had grown steadily quieter in the past hours, his skin sallowing to ghostly alabaster no matter how she’d urged his mouth to her throat, her wrists, her breast. The lines around his mouth had deepened to grooves her lips couldn’t ease. His hair spiked at his temples from the countless times he’d run his shaking fingers through it.
What made irrational fury spike through her like nails was that Pridemore’s vampyr and weres had descended into a hell she wouldn’t wish on Satan himself. Yet this vampyr, this bloody prince, calmly marched to stare down at them, where she, Garrick, and the weres lay together. They’d intertwined atop communal blankets to offer whatever solace could be had to one another just to make it through the next minute. Just one more minute. Then another. And another minute more.
Aidan looked down through his designer sunglasses, his features a placid mask.
His nostrils flared to scent the air. “It’s all right,” he shouted toward the cliff face and the ladders there. “They’ve fully mated.”
With an enraged shriek, Kate launched herself at him. Her fingers curved to claws, and she would’ve done her best to dig furrows into that too-perfect face, gouge an eye from his arrogant head. Garrick had told her the prince was older than even he. Kate knew the vampyr was a great deal more powerful than she was and would’ve likely batted her attacks away handily, but she’d have tried.
Garrick caught her to him, rolled, and used his weight to hold her down.
“Get off me! Get off. I’m going to kill that slick son of a bi—”
Garrick’s mouth fused with hers, cutting off the hysterical tirade and at the same time, subduing the outburst she hadn’t the energy to feed.
“Shh, love. Easy. Aidan brought help. He meant only to tell the others your vampyr would tolerate them.”
Distraught tears flooded her eyes. “How dare he intrude? After you warned him not to follow, after he brought the masters down on us—”
“The masters would have found us had they tracked us through the prince or our blood trail when Luc and I hunted. They’re cutting off his fingers to make him cry out to me. Can you doubt the lengths they’ll go to find us?” He buried his nose in the crook of her shoulder when the scream inside her transformed to a broken sob.
“I called him, love,” Garrick said, sheltering her with his body, “because we have no other choice.”
“Must you be so insensitive?” Isabel, elegant in a crisp, cream-colored pantsuit, scowled at Aidan when she reached his side. The woman darted a glance warm with concern at all the Pridemore refugees, vampyr and were alike, before finally settling her gaze on Kate. “I often want to kill Aidan myself.”
Another vampyr appeared behind her shoulder. He pushed wiry glasses up the bridge of his nose. “Most of us do.”
* * *
They held the council among the twisted blankets on the cave floor. Aidan simply pulled up Garrick’s discarded barrel, fastidiously brushed it off, and sat above them, like a king on his throne.
The rest of the vampyr, four men and two women, perched on the edge of the blankets or the stone floor, to varying degrees of discomfort that the wary glances they flashed at the weres indicated were hardly physical.
Suspicious eyes watched Peter nod. The vampyr tensed when all but the pack’s adult males crawled from the twined mass blanketing both Garrick and Kate. They relaxed only when the other weres began seeing to the camp. Fires were rebuilt. Sentries posted. Children busied.
And the soldiers were left to their war.
“We realized something had gone wrong when our headhunters spotted weres searching secondary roads in the Western states—”
“Wait.”
Cocooned in the warmth of his arms, Kate peered at Garrick, surprised at the steel in his tone.
Aidan’s eyebrow arched. “Yes, Garrick?”
He nodded to the scrawny vampyr, the one with the glasses that kept slipping down his nose. “Not that I don’t appreciate that Elliot is very probably the most brilliant of our kind,” he said and tipped his head to indicate another vampyr, this one solid muscle and pure lethal grace. “I realize Malachi is among the best of our warriors, and he was the last to be paired with Luc. I will be grateful for and remember any aid they choose to offer—”
“As will my pack,” Pete
r said.
“But they are not council. Unmated.”
Kate blinked up at Garrick. “And this is important why?”
“Watch. Listen.”
Aidan’s mouth curved to a feral smile that made her shiver. “Your weres are not council either. I didn’t ask you to remove them.”
Peter snorted in disgust, burrowed closer to Garrick’s side.
She glared at Aidan. “Your prince is insufferable. You should’ve let me hit him.”
Garrick’s mental chuckle warmed her. “For better or worse, he’s your prince too.”
“Luc is unmated, of no particular importance to the rebellion. He is my problem and mine alone.” Garrick stared at first Elliot, who fidgeted, then Malachi, who sat stonily silent. “The weres are mine as well. These vampyr are not.”
“Malachi is not just among our best. He is our best.” Aidan stared, his dark eyes keen. “While you mated, the masters searched for you. They raided, one by one at first, then by twos and threes.” He paused, waiting for some reaction from Garrick.
“He won’t get one.”
“I’ve always known the masters would push aside their petty differences and work together if universal need surpassed self-interest. I’m surprised you didn’t.”
“I feared it, yes.” The prince shrugged. “They haven’t cooperated with one another since the rebellion began, though, and never like this. We weren’t prepared.” He glanced away, swallowed thickly. “They slaughtered us.”
Garrick flinched.
“The survivors selected me to represent them.” Malachi shrugged, and taking a deep breath, he squared his shoulders. “Luc was also my partner. I won’t abandon him. I can’t. You trusted me enough to be his elder in your stead, but I’ll take your blood to provide my guarantee. I don’t want to, but I will. If that’s what it takes to prove my loyalty.”
“You see how determined the headhunters are to help you? You know how extraordinary that is,” the prince said. “Don’t be a fool.”
Garrick stared long moments.
Kate fidgeted.
“I accept.”
Startled, she turned in his arms to face him. “You trust him?”