“Hey!” he mock-yelled at her.
The girl looked up, tears shimmering in those eyes. They were like gold topaz, Brendan noted a little dreamily.
Jen grabbed the hands that the girl was trying to use to cover her face. It had to be embarrassing to be where that she wasn't wanted in the ridiculous white dress, her hair six ways to Sunday.
“No, no,” Jen crooned, throwing a dirty glance at the two guys, who stood behind her looking contrite. “Don't listen to my stupid brothers.” She looked up at the girl earnestly. “They always sound dumb.”
“Yeah, that's us. Dumb,” Brendan said dryly.
“Yeah, that,” Michael agreed, swinging his longish dirty blond hair out of his eyes.
The girl gave a small smile. “So, you guys… do you want me to leave?” Her lip trembled again. “Because I can't go back there,” she said in a low voice.
Brendan, looking alarmed, approached her too quickly. She backed up, and he stopped. “No. You don't—we don't want you to go back to the Were… or the vampires. We're all about sucking you into our world. It's where you belong.”
Michael nodded. “Why would you think that we wouldn't want you?”
The girl shrugged. “You sounded like you were kinda mad.”
Jen shook her head. “Nah! That's the way they always sound.”
“Like smart-ass meets anger management?” The girl was definitely okay now, a smile breaking through her tears as though they'd never been.
Jen smiled in return. “I'm Jen,” she said, sticking her hand out, and the girl shook it.
Brendan and Michael came forward. “And these are the dummy duo, who you've had the misfortune of meeting already,” Jen said, but the humor in her voice took away the sting.
“We're not always dumb,” Michael said, taking her hand and giving it a gentle squeeze then dropping it.
“I wouldn't know how to be dumb.” Brendan winked, but he didn't shake her hand. Instead, he drew her into a hug that pressed her against his body, melding her form to his. He said against her hair, “We've been looking for you for a long time.” He drew away, the happiness radiating from every pore so hot that even Jen could feel it.
“Me?” the girl asked, putting her hand to her chest.
They nodded.
“Why? I mean, I don't know you guys.” She looked at them expectantly.
“It's not who you are—it's what you are,” Michael said.
The girl folded her arms. “Okay, I give up. What am I?”
They looked at each other uneasily, and the girl asked again, “Come on, spill the secret! I know I'm a Singer…” She threw out her hands. “I know I'm theʻRare One.ʼ I've known that for a while.” Her hands dropped against the fabric of the dress after the air quotes.
“Rare One?” Michael shook his head. “I don't know what that is, but you're not that to us.”
Jen said, “You're more than that.”
The girl looked at them. She opened her mouth to speak, but Brendan cut in. “You are Queen.”
The girl staggered back a step. “What?” she asked dully. “Queen of whom?”
“The Singers. You are Queen of the Blood Singers.”
Her eyes rolled and her knees started to buckle, but Brendan caught her easily.
He looked down at the girl who had fainted into his arms and felt his heart clench. He hated feeling weak.
She already had a piece of his heart. It beat slower for the loss of that chunk.
Brendan didn't even know her name—not that it mattered. Love was an errant master, choosing its object without reason or rationale.
****
Pack
Adriana screamed at her brother—for him and at him.
“Hold still, Adi!” He jammed his leg into her armpit and wrenched the arm back in before she could stiffen up more than she already had.
Tears of pain rolled down her face, and Joseph swiped them away with the pad of his thumb. “Shhh. It's okay,” He gathered her against his chest.
“It's not okay, Joseph, and you fucking know it!” Tony paced, and Joseph's face shifted. That was automatic when an Alpha felt challenged. The Change asserted itself subtly beneath his skin.
Adi saw her brother's face shift.
“It is at your feet where the fault lies. You insisted that Lawrence give her the worst punishment!” he responded, his anger roiling underneath his skin with weight, with purpose.
Tony turned to face him, his posture wary and tight.
Joseph carefully untangled himself from Adriana, shifting her weight against the acrylic wall that had held the feral.
He faced Tony, walking toward him on a slow prowl.
Adi watched as her brother's body shifted to bursting, the moon's power waning but not nearly enough.
“Me? She is the one who pushed the boundaries! It's always her. And she is always coddled. Now, the Rare One has escaped with the Singers, the feral has escaped, and that vamp runner killed five of us! Five!”
Tony's scathing stare burned a pathway across Adriana, and she growled low in her throat. She didn't care that he outmatched her by a hundred pounds and a foot of height. She hated Tony.
He smelled bad.
She smacked her uninjured palm against the clear wall and boosted herself to standing. “I will take responsibility for the feral. I panicked. I thought he'd already escaped. But”—her stare gave dominant weight to her words, and she watched Tony visibly bristle at its significance—“I will not accept the strange shit that went down while I was injured—substituting for you, so you could fight my brother and also stick me with that chore on the full moon!” Her eyes shifted from one to the other. “I am not a ʻfavorite,ʼ” Adi said, using air quotes. “I was pressed to do the worst chore at the worst time because I let my alligator mouth overload my canary ass.”
Joseph barked out a laugh. “She's right.”
The tension in the empty holding cell slipped down a notch.
“Like any one of us could have known a vamp was skulking around, all Lone Ranger and then the coincidence of the feral escaping. Oh!” she yelled into the strange acoustics of the room, “let's not forget the darling Singers who waltzed in during the bloodiest and most distracting ritual ever conceived and snatched Jules right from underneath our very noses.” She seethed, the fingers of her index and thumb a hair's breadth apart.
They'd been that close to holding on to Julia.
“And—” she continued to rant.
Tony crossed his muscular arms, rolling his eyes. “Shut up and listen!” Tony growled. “This female never knows when to shut up. Someone should teach her a lesson.”
Adi's lips pulled away from her teeth, another growl reverberating between them.
“Enough!” Joseph roared, startling them both. His eyes landed on his sister. “Finish now, then we go to Lawrence. This whole incompetent mess will need to be explained.”
“I was just going to say that fifteen of our wolves trailed the Singers, and still… we didn't get her back,” Adi said.
“So?” Tony said with derision.
“So, I think they're more powerful than we've been trying to convince ourselves.”
“Ha! Bullshit. They're human, and they can do some parlor tricks. It's not real strength. Who do they call leader?” Tony's words echoed into the silence.
Adi rolled her eyes. He was such a goddamn know-it-all.
“What of the Book of Luna?” Joseph asked.
Tony didn't bother with reading that old crap. It was the new order. The only thing he'd wanted was to become a moonless changer. That he'd believed in plenty. And now the little Singer had slipped between his claws like water through a sieve. But she would be within his grasp again.
Adi nodded. “They are a force of their own. You know that! Look what happened a few hours ago? They fooled you, Tony!”
Tony glowered at her. He'd almost had that male Singer, but it was as if the Singer had eyes in the back of his head. Tony shook his head, thinki
ng about it.
“Yeah,” he ground out. “Don't know how. I almost had him.” He smacked his fist into his opposite palm, his dark eyes flashing.
“Scent Tracker,” Joseph said in a flat voice.
Tony whipped his head in Joseph's direction, his eyebrows hiking.
Adriana nodded. She and Joseph had both been trained in the precepts held within the Book.
Tony threw his hands up. “I give up. Drop this secretive shit. Just. Tell. Me.” He pegged his hands on his powerful hips, frowning at them.
“A sense of smell a thousand times more powerful than ours,” Joseph said.
“Impossible,” Tony breathed out, thinking of his multilayered scent awareness. It was so overwhelming he had trained himself to tune out most scents. It was too much. But one thousand times more sensitive? He couldn't wrap his mind around it. He scoffed at the possibility.
“I know, right? It's—” Adi began.
“Unbelievable!” Joseph agreed, nodding.
“Yeah. Okay. Whatever. But what about the ten vampires that just flashed into existence and were ghosts when we attacked?” Explain that, Tony thought.
Adriana laughed, and the men turned to her. When she finally stopped, she said, “Vampire mirage.”
Joseph sighed. “Not helpful.”
“What exactly was it?” Adi asked.
Joseph shook his head. "I'm not sure. But it had been a superb deflection on their part. Too good."
“Well, it was pretty fucking effective!” Tony said. “I could smell the vamps. Smell them,” he said through clenched teeth.
Joseph gave a sound low in his throat. “No, that was the Tracker, assisting… the other one.”
“They can work in tandem?” Adi asked, a look of amazement on her face.
Joseph nodded. “Looks like.” Then he paused. “But a more likely reason for the two is family.”
“What?” Tony narrowed his eyes.
“I speculate for that pair to work as seamlessly together as they did, they'd have to be family.”
“What about the bitch with them?” Tony asked. He conjured up an image of her in his mind: small, pixie-like features, hair blondish—though it had been hard to know for sure in the moonlight. It silvered everything.
Except the red Feral.
His fur had shone like blood spilled.
“Her too,” Joseph said.
Tony's nose was unaffected by his sight. He'd know the Singer female the next time he smelled her. Hell, he'd know them all. Tony's fists curled. “I'd love to have another chance at those three.”
“Soon,” Joseph promised.
“What about the female?” Adi asked suspiciously.
“Especially her,” he said with barely contained desire.
Joseph scowled at him just as another Were entered the holding pen.
“Lawrence is waiting,” he said, shyly glancing at Adriana.
Adi rolled her eyes and flounced out, pushing by the Were. He watched her as she disappeared.
Joseph followed, and Tony came last.
As he passed the other Were, slightly younger than himself, he whispered, “You don't want her.”
The Were leaned back with a puzzled expression. There were few Were females, and she was a good-looking one, too. “Why?” he asked, genuinely puzzled.
“Untrainable,” Tony said, stalking off behind the siblings.
****
The Feral
The feral lifted his head from the fragrant entrails of the deer, the meat a fresh and tasty smell that permeated his olfactory senses, stirring a deep and profound hunger.
He howled and then fed.
The moon, on the wane, hung above him in a blanket of velvet, the stars like diamonds. They glittered as the moon supervised her charge.
When at last he finished, his body demanded rest. He dug out a place of safety in the deepest part of the forest. The feral burrowed underneath his self-made nest. He needed to ready himself for the next leg of his journey. Finally satisfied with his sleeping place, he lay down. Sleep came for him, and just as he slid into the embrace of unconsciousness, he thought of her.
The female.
He had to have her and she, him.
He was certain when they had connected under the roof of the great structure that she'd felt it, too—the pull of one to the other.
They were meant to be together.
Forever.
He slept, the moon keeping her own counsel.
*
The Pavilion
William screamed inside his head as the Were held him, their talons biting into his dead flesh. He saw the Singers tear Julia out of his grasp and that of the Were.
Hope slid away like rain on a tin roof.
William Changed were he stood, his raven form protecting him, assuring his survival.
The Were let go in surprise, not ready for the smallness of his form. They rushed to grab him at the same time he rose with a sharp caw, circling above their position. His eyes, many times sharper than in his vampire form, tracked the Singers. And he watched the pursuit of them by the Were.
He followed, his blackness the perfect camouflage against the night sky. He saw all: when Julia fainted in the arms of the Singer as he ran.
When the fetid breath of the Were caressed the back of the one who held her.
When ten of William's kind suddenly appeared then vanished as if they had never been.
Defeated, William flew to a safe distance then Changed back into the form that would return him to the kiss with the least effort.
Even as he ran, his mind turned over his next move.
If he had been one to play chess, his sight would be set on one piece and one alone: The queen.
*
Julia
Julia opened her eyes and was instantly met with melted chocolate.
His eyes. Her thoughts were still muddled and fuzzy.
Oh, wow. I fainted a second time. This is becoming a trend. She wanted to find a rock and crawl underneath it.
“Hey you,” Brendan said, pushing a stray hair away from her temple.
“I feel beyond stupid.”
“Well, we're even then,” he said, his lips curling up at the corners.
She smiled at him, and he grinned back.
Suddenly, Jen's face showed beside his. “You're okay. Big shock is all.”
Yeah, that. Biiiigggg shock. Two hunky dudes, also Singers, had kidnapped her and taken her away to… where the hell was she anyway?
Michael said from the foot of her bed, “You're somewhere in the Olympic Peninsula.”
Julia frowned. “Kinda cagey.”
“Kinda cautious,” Michael quipped.
Brendan patted her head as if she were a small dog, and stood. “Gotta keep things secure. Nobody knows anything. That's how we like it.”
“Uh-huh, uh-huh. That's the way, uh-huh, uh-huh, we like it, uh-huh, uh-huh,” Michael said, swiveling his hips in a distracting way.
“God… ewww. I hope that's not actual singing you're attempting?” Jen asked, looking mortified.
“Oh yeah, I can do Karaoke with the best of them,” he said with a hip thrust and hop. Julia giggled.
Brendan frowned. “Are you okay, asshat? ʼCause…”
He looked expectantly at Julia.
“Julia,” she said, and he smiled and gave her a wink.
“Julia is not impressed by your” —he swung his palm around—“gyrations and attempts at singing.”
“I don't know…” Julia began in a drawl.
All eyes went to her.
“For pure entertainment value, it's about a seven.”
“Out of what?” Michael asked hopefully.
“Fifty, retard!” Jen yelled, punching him in the arm again.
“Ow!” Michael raged then turned to Julia. “Did you see that abuse?”
Julia nodded cooperatively and grinned.
Jen grabbed the boys and dragged them out of the room. “Get ye out!” she yelled,
shoving them outside and turning the lock.
“Sheesh!” Jen fumed. “They're so… so…”
“Funny?” Julia asked.
Jen sighed then gave her a sidelong glance. “Maybe. But if you tell them I said so, I'll poke your eyes out. Their heads are already so fat they wouldn't get through doorways if you stroked their egos even the tiniest bit.”
Julia smiled. “I promise—no fathead air pumps allowed.”
“Right!” Jen said, stabbing the air with a finger.
“Now”—she looked at Julia critically—“can we deposit the dress in file thirteen?”
“Huh?” Julia asked, bewildered.
Jen laughed. “Sorry. I have some strange expressions.”
She sure did.
“Trash. Let's throw it away.” She looked at Julia. “Unless you want to keep it for some reason?”
Julia looked down at the soft folds of pure white. “No.” But as she said it, she was reminded of Adi and felt a stab of guilt and sadness. She sure would have liked to have said goodbye to her.
She was relieved not to have to be in some whacked-out forced union with the Were, but… she missed having Cyn around. She missed Adi.
Shit. I just put out an engraved invitation for a pity party and RSVP'd myself.
Dammit.
Jen seemed to pick up on her mood. “Hey!”
Julia turned to look at her, the melancholy riding her like an unwanted friend. “Get out of the getup and get a shower. We'll suck up some grub and walk around the complex some. I bet you've got a ton of questions.” Jen looked at her expectantly.
That sounded good. “Sure.” Julia walked to the bathroom, and Jen handed her some clothes.
“You'll have to wear my stuff until we figure some clothes out for you.” She looked up at Julia. “I guess my pants will be capris on you,” she said, winking.
Then she was gone.
Julia stood under the spray, taking the longest shower of her life, the windowpanes casting puzzle pieces of color across her body as she washed.
Julia cried, the rain from the showerhead washing away her tears. She cried for everyone.
William.
Cyn.
Adi.
But the heaviest tears were for Jason—always him.
*
“Did you get a good cry?” Jen asked Julia.
She thought about lying. For about three seconds. “Yeah.”
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