*
Tony looked down at the flushed face of the Rare One. He could scent her displeasure at being held by him coming out of every pore of her body. Even if she'd been well, she couldn't have fought him. Except for her gifts, she was helpless. She was helplessly female and ill in an intoxicating mix that made his perverted heart speed. He could feel the presence of the Alpha at his back and didn't care.
Tony had never been one to follow rules.
He'd have her, squirming and fighting. It'd be amazing. He crushed her against himself, and she made a pained sound and beat at his chest weakly.
*
Scott felt a great hopelessness well up inside him that was so foreign to his nature he interpreted it for what it was: Julia.
And on the top of it all, he felt fear, discomfort, and pain.
Someone was hurting her as she succumbed to illness. Scott's hands tightened into fists of rage. His fists knew how to deliver punishment, and they would do it soon.
Scott increased his pace to a sprint. His Singer strength, endurance, and speed were on a par with the Were as well as the vampires. His siblings and parent followed in a rainbow blur of colors, their hues mixing inexplicably as they drew closer to Julia. Their familial footprint as they advanced into battle was formidable.
Dangerous.
*
William and the others chased the trail left by the Were as they ran, Julia's scent mingled with the wolvesʼ. Her scent was off. Now that he had shifted back from raven form, William's senses seemed almost dulled, even though he knew they were a hundred times more sensitive than those of humans.
He sped with every thought, every fiber of his being trained to overtake them and rescue Julia.
*
The feral watched those of his kind take the female. She was sickened and unable to defend herself from the one Were he hated most, the one who had taunted him. That Were had given him hose showers that had bruised his skin with the force of the spray and had given him prey that was spoiled or infirm.
Yes, the feral would know his foul odor anywhere.
A tingling rush of fighting adrenaline surged through him.
The feral charged from the left, crashing out of the brush, as a thought came to him.
They are nearly nose-blind to have not scented me this close.
His step faltered for one half a second when he recognized the female Were he'd harmed in his pen. She traveled with them. A moment's peace touched him as he realized she was whole and well again.
That peace fled as he barreled into the Were who led. The feral's talons sliced the neck as he launched a counterstrike, one against four.
Joseph spun too late as the assault came at his third from the front. He couldn't believe he hadn't scented another Were this close. It was completely unexpected. He growled at his sister, “Run!”
She would be crushed by the red. Every protective instinct Joseph possessed punched to life, his reaction automatic.
*
Adi ignored her brother and ran toward where Tony held Julia, the feral having ripped three holes in the leading Were's vulnerable neck. As he dropped from the killing blow, his blood blanketing the forest with crimson, Adriana leapt. Her arms were outstretched. Tony casually tossed Julia toward the ground.
She landed in Adi's embrace, and they fell together on the soft forest debris.
The feral met her eyes for one moment, and she cringed backward, scooping Julia closer in her arms.
Her brother and Tony circled the red. His coat shone like fire burned down to embers, and she knew they would kill him.
It made her chest tight to think it. Adi shook it off. What was wrong with her? He was feral.
He had hurt her.
But deep within, something stirred and responded to him against every precept and instinct.
Adriana did not wish for his death.
She turned her attention to Jules. She was burning up, moaning and thrashing. Adriana forced her human form to return. As difficult as it was to change to half wolf, it hurt more to go back to human so quickly, a brutal energy siphon. But she didn't want Jules to see her and be afraid.
Adi held Jules in her arms, and the feral and werewolves circled each other just as the vampires entered the glade, and a troop of Singers broke out of the forest opposite them.
Oh shit! Adi thought. We'll never make it out of here alive.
Julia opened her eyes just then, and her fevered stare latched onto Adriana. “Adi,” she said weakly.
“I'm here, Jules,” she said, wiping sweaty strands of hair out of her face.
“Don't let them… hurt me.”
Never, Adi thought, rolling the small bundle that was Julia into a hug and standing without effort.
After all, she was a werewolf.
She faced off with the vampires and Singers, her grin making her look like a wolf in sheep's clothing.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Reckoning
Scott stared at the female werewolf who held Julia.
Their queen.
His. He growled. He didn't know where that primitive utterance had come from, but he rolled with it instinctively. He saw the vamps at the same time the werewolves went after the big red guy.
Lots to do here. Scott was always game, his body practiced and ready for violence.
It moved forward of its own volition.
William saw the group of Singers and paused. His nostrils flared, and he recognized something about the one that led—his scent was slightly different. William was a runner. He was bred to recognize the Rare Blood in Singers. Julia was pure. But this one had enough quantum for William to respond. Every tracking instinct tingled inside him even as Julia was in his sights.
Who was this Singer?
The one William stared at launched himself with the speed of a Singer who was trained, seasoned, and in the prime of his life. He hurtled toward Julia.
*
Julia rose to consciousness as if swimming from the bottom of a pool but without the benefit of alertness. She was in a fog, the fever stealing her cognitive reasoning, making her slow and thick feeling.
She watched the scene unfold from the cradle of Adi's arms.
*
Scott came toward Julia in a flash of brilliance, The tailwind of colors behind him she intuited as being the rest of his family. From Julia's left, William and the vampire tore toward her, the feral howling in misery. The tone of it told her all she needed to know.
He drove to get to her, kept at bay by Tony and Joseph.
But maybe not for long.
*
Julia made the most difficult decision of her life, but she knew it would solve the current problem instantly. Her mind sought what it needed, and when she found it… the metal flashed in the gloom of the forest, making its way to her as if by invisible strings.
She grabbed the hilt of the stolen weapon, her telekinetic ability bringing it to her in a rush of surprise to all. The supernaturals in the forest stilled their movements.
The desired effect was instantaneous.
Marcus watched his utility knife, which he routinely wore at his hip, come unlatched and spin away from his body, lurching toward Julia hilt first.
Julia caught it in her hand, flicked it open, held it to her own throat, and screamed hoarsely, “Stop!”
Adi looked down at Julia. “No!”
“Let me down, Adi.” Her voice was steady.
Adriana did as she was asked, and Julia slid down the front of her body and swayed on her feet, her head swimming with pain and vertigo.
Julia looked at William, who stood as still as a statue. “Do not,” he whispered. “None of us wish for this end, Julia. This is not the answer.”
*
Scott stopped breathing when he saw the metal gleaming against the pale throat of the Queen of the Blood Singers. The fibers of his being pulled taut to the breaking point while his soul shrieked inside him. He made a move to step forward, and Julia's gaze shifted to hi
s. “Don't even try it. I know you hate me,” she hissed, her strength ebbing, her hand shaking from the strain of keeping it steady.
The fibers of his being cinched tighter in discomfort. Her safety was in jeopardy by her own hand. Scott stood poised to launch himself at her the moment her attention wavered, the pain of not touching her unbearable. It was unlike anything he'd ever known. Every bruise, every battle wound—nothing compared.
Julia backed away from all of them, her back touching the trunk of a tree. They stood, all eyes tracking her progress, knowing that a false move could end her life. Then what would they have? What would she be?
Dead.
As the tears began to flow, Julia realized that nothing good had happened to her since Jason's death. Her lower lip trembled, and her hand shook as she determined that this was the best answer for her after all. She was tired.
So tired.
Joseph and Tony saw her expression first as they were the closest. But it was the feral who acted, his half-wolf form slipping off him like water sheeting off glass.
He sprang forward, human again for that moment.
The moment of truth.
Julia saw him, and her heart stalled in her chest.
She dropped the knife, all thought of death forgotten. The knife speared the earth at her feet, and she staggered forward without thinking.
****
Kent
Cynthia thanked the nice lady with the sad eyes for the room, nodding in all the right places when she said it was but a transitional respite. Blah, blah, blah. Cynthia got it. A place to lay her head on a pillow, none of the creatures in sight. They couldn't have followed her all the way to the outskirts of Seattle. She breathed a sigh of relief for the first time in what felt like forever.
She opened the door to the dark room and saw a bunch of plaster repair and the evidence of damage all over the place. The lady turned to her, the chain that hung off her glasses catching the light. “Don't mind the mess. We're doing a touch of remodeling.”
Cynthia looked around her. Looks like more than a touch. The window looked the worst. She walked over to it, seeing the remnants of hand-blown glass, wavy and warped, encased in a solid wood frame. Hairline fissures scattered about the center were taped so they couldn't splinter further. She turned her head and saw the old lady's face in profile. “What happened?”
The woman shrugged her shoulders, hauling the shawl she wore more firmly around her hunched shoulders. “We're not sure. But there was a young woman who stayed here a few months past.” She looked down at her sensible shoes and the pantyhose, which were an unnatural tan color. She suddenly looked up with guilt and muted horror. “She, uh… we think she was taken.”
Not much of a shelter! Cynthia thought, looking at the damage of the room more closely. She asked, “By whom?”
The woman shrugged, backing carefully out of the room, giving her a nod as she left, and closing the door softly behind her. Conversation closed.
Cynthia looked at the windowsill more closely.
Her chest tightened in a clutch of pain, her breath leaving her body.
She traced the marring left in the wood of the sill with a hand that shook so badly she grabbed it with its mate to steady it. She gave a shaky exhalation.
It wasn't who took the girl but what.
Cynthia snatched her hand back. She looked outside, beyond the glass and the unkempt yard below to the forest. It was dark and quiet.
A perfect hiding place—for them.
Cyn backed up until her legs hit the mattress and sat down. She stared at the window. It looked as though she might have escaped one horror for another.
Breaking her stupor, she rummaged in her backpack until she found what she was looking for. She lay down on her back, her finger running over her one photo, a habit of comfort these almost two years past. She never missed a night without looking at them.
It was Vegas. Just the four of them: she and Kev, Jason and Jules.
Before.
Jules was dressed up for once, Jason's arm slung comfortably around her shoulders as if it belonged there. Cynthia's eyes stung with unshed tears, hot and unwelcome, as she looked at Kevin. When they ran down her face, she didn't wipe them away but pressed the photo against her chest.
Her heart.
She missed them so much she felt as though her heart would never stop breaking. That was why her chest hurt so damn much all the time.
Her heart was broken in shards inside her.
Cynthia covered the photo with both hands and put her head to the side of the pillow, stifling her sobbing from the other inhabitants of the women's shelter.
*
Truman
Truman looked at Alexander, their eyes meeting a final time. “I can't believe this. I know you're telling me all this but I can't…” Karl tapped his head.
“Wrap your head around it? Yeah, tell me about it!” Alexander responded, nodding.
Karl Truman fought the urge to take his small note pad out of its home in the upper pocket of his button-down and clasped his hands together instead. “So they're…”
George Alexander nodded. “They're big suckers, standing on hind legs.” He made his palm flat and put it a foot above his head. “That makes these guys about seven feet tall.”
Truman whistled. “So, they're dexterous?”
“Very. They had no difficulty pawing through this apartment, turning knobs, unlatching windows. No…” He paused, not a hint of humor in his voice, giving Truman the full weight of his eyes. “They used the doors and windows. They have higher reasoning, no doubt.” George tapped his temple.
Truman thought about his words instead of blurting just anything out. “How high?”
Alexander paused for a beat. “Maybe like us… maybe.” He scratched his head and turned his back on Truman, pacing off to the window, gazing at the forest that stretched interminably beyond their position. “They are something else.”
“What are you saying, George?” Truman walked up to him, getting right in his face. He was going to make Alexander spill this info if it killed him. The specialist's green eyes met Truman's.
“I'm saying we have real-life werewolves.”
Truman staggered back a step. “No,” he said, getting a physical reaction of heat climbing his body uncomfortably. His mind had spun around the possibility of it but had eventually dismissed it as too unreal.
Alexander paced toward him, ticking off the facts on his hand. “Canine genome, DNA match, size, aggression, higher reasoning…” Then after a pause, he let the final bomb drop. “The saliva tells us the final piece.”
Real enough.
Truman leaned forward despite not wanting to, his heart in his throat, the evidence warring with his disbelief over anything that was not concrete, normal, sane.
“Human genome,” George Alexander said quietly.
Truman stared at Alexander, and he returned it. The moment swelled with portentous knowledge, belief solidifying.
Half human, half wolf.
Werewolf.
Alexander was reminded of one of the first precepts he had learned in med school: “When you hear hoofbeats behind you, don't expect to see a zebra.”
In this case, that was all he heard—zebras.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Jason.
Maybe her eyes deceived her, but Julia's heart knew.
She had watched as the feral melted away and a nearly naked Jason ran to her, fending off her killing blow.
She crashed into him, her arms snapping around him. His body felt at once shocking familiar and foreign in her embrace.
In a moment, she knew something was wrong as pandemonium broke loose all around her. The different factions came together at once in a collision of claws, talons, and speed.
Julia was prone before she could move or breathe. Jason's now-human hands encircled her throat, her feverish skin burning against his cooler flesh. She frantically searched eyes that didn't know her. They were crazed and fu
ll of heat and hate.
Who is he now? Julia shrieked inside her mind.
Her head swam, and she began to grow dizzy, her stomach cramping as Jason—her husband from another life, another time—began to choke her to death.
*
Scott saw the feral return to his human state and launch himself at Julia. Scott bounded toward the feral werewolf just as he began to strangle Julia. The feral's mind was obviously broken.
*
William understood who it was the instant the red Were changed into human form. He had seen photos of Julia's former husband. But this was no longer the husband she knew. His mind was gone, the wolf in control even while he was human. Few Singers could overcome the transition to Were or vampire. It was never attempted. The results at this moment a confirmation of the dangerous consequence, the theory borne to fruition.
William charged Jason Caldwell at the precise moment as Joseph and Tony.
*
The vampires and Were collided, and the forest grew still except for the sounds of flesh tearing and the battering of one against the other. Scott landed on the back of the Singer, aiming a blow to stun him. The vamps and Were fought behind him while his siblings formed a protective wall around him.
*
Jason felt the blow on the base of his neck, numbing in its accuracy and force. He began to slide away from the woman whom he'd been strangling.
He recognized her too late.
Jason fell beside her, meeting her eyes.
Puzzle pieces of memories came from a blizzard that twirled without pattern to a solid stream of consciousness.
This was not any female.
This was his wife.
Julia.
What had he done? He moved to get up, and one of his kind leaped on his chest, knocking the wind out of him—but not before her eyes had met his, and Jason saw the one who had hit him pick Julia up as the Were and vampire beat each other into the forest floor, blood covering everything under five feet high in a spinning tornado of gore.
Black and red ran together like a poisonous lake. He watched the blood of his kind and that of his enemy run together, his consciousness slipping away, the blow successful in its intent.
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