A Place to Run (Trials of the Blood Book 1)

by Becca Lynn Mathis

  “Can you prove it?” I asked.

  “Consanguinea?” he replied.

  I nodded.

  “Of course I can.” He opened an application on the computer. “We've been tracking them for centuries, technology has just made it that much easier.” He stood and gestured for me to sit in the chair.

  On the screen was a highly intricate family tree. He moved the cursor and highlighted where my name and birth date fell on the diagram. Scrolling back, I found my own immediate family, of course, but also well-known names like Elvis Presley, Albert Einstein, and Leonardo Da Vinci. I skipped past entire sections, but on and on it went for generations and generations, all tracing back to the siblings of Jesus himself.

  “Holy...” I whispered. “How on Earth do you have all of this documented?!”

  “Well it was all rather painstaking and hard to see on the whole before this database was developed,” Sheppard explained. “This just took a lot of the guesswork out of it. Interestingly, none of the popes have been on this chart.”

  “So my father is this, con-sang-ee-”

  “Consanguinea,” Sheppard corrected.

  “Con-sang-win-ay-uh,” I sounded out. He nodded. “Then my father is too, right? What does that mean though, exactly?”

  “Only that your lineage goes straight back to the family of Jesus of Nazareth.” Sheppard shrugged. “It means either your mother or father and then either their mother or father was the son or daughter of someone else whose mother or father was a direct descendant of the bloodline. It sounds confusing, but that's why we mapped it out like this.” He inclined his head toward the screen.

  Confusing is right. I can’t even imagine the sort of logical leaps they had to make to try to keep track of it before the application on the computer.

  “Jesus had four brothers and two sisters,” Sheppard said. “Each of their firstborn was consanguinea, as were the firstborn of each generation after.”

  I stood as the realization dawned on me. “My father's in danger too!” I exclaimed. “I have to warn him!” I mean, sure, he and I hadn’t spoken since his last check-in with me months ago, but I didn’t want him to get killed!

  Sheppard gestured to a phone similar to Jonathan’s: the latest and greatest model, a sleek black thing, placed on the corner of the desk. “It has the card from your old phone in it.”

  Great. I’d worked hard to stay away from these stupidly absurd things since their inception, but now he was just giving me one. It’d probably be rude to tell him I didn’t want it. And if I was pack...well then, they probably wanted an easy way to reach me. I picked up the phone and pressed the button on the side. The screen blinked on, and though it took a few tries, I found my contact list and scrolled to my dad's number.

  “Call if you must,” he said, “but just hear me out first.”

  My finger hovered over the call icon, but I looked to Sheppard.

  “It's unlikely your father is in any real danger,” Sheppard explained. “The vampires seek to right themselves, but—as far as we know—they haven’t figured out how to track consanguinea. So they just take blind shots in the dark. Most of the time, they get it wrong. It’s far easier for them to make a drunk college student at a bar disappear than someone like your father.”

  My wolf growled at the thought.

  “So they like easy prey.” I sat back down.

  “It's the only way they stay under the radar,” he replied. “Just as the world isn't ready for werewolves, it's certainly not ready for vampires. At least we're not overtly threatening.” He grinned in a way that was decidedly predatory, and I squirmed in the chair. “But we're scary enough that the general populace would still be afraid. No one is particularly fond of things that go bump in the night.”

  “So you had Matt follow me because I was the sort of easy prey the vampires would like.” Peachy.

  “No.” Sheppard shook his head. “I smelled you in a bar back in March. But then the military came to me about a month ago with news of a consanguinea in my territory. I knew who they were talking about. That's when I had Matt start watching you.”

  “It’s been...” I did some quick math, March to November. “Eight months since you smelled me in that bar.” March had been my birthday. It must have been one of the times I went out with Jenny and Steph.

  “How did you connect my smell from back then to who the military talked to you about seven months later?”

  He looked me square in the eye, “I never forget a consanguinea.”

  That was uncomfortable. I looked away.

  “But wait,” I said, hooking a strand of hair behind my ear. “This is just a family tree.” I gestured to the computer screen. “You could have made all of this up and I wouldn’t know the difference. This doesn’t actually prove anything.”

  He smiled at me then, his golden-brown eyes glittering with an approval that was almost tangible. Nodding, he pulled his phone from his back pocket and leaned against the desk. “The only reason you’re not sitting there like a strung-out junkie looking for their next fix is because of your bloodline.”

  I furrowed my brow. “What the hell do you mean by that?”

  He took a slow breath, his face calculating. “What do you know about your friend? The tall man with the dark hair.”

  I cocked my head at him. “You understand that’s kind of my type, don’t you?”

  He smiled. “Frederick was the name Matt overheard. Have you ever seen him in the daylight?”

  What the hell kind of cheesy question is that? Had I ever seen Frederick in the daylight? I mean, come on. He was my friend—a great dancer, and far better conversationalist than me. We had gone out clubbing with my friends a number of times. But I thought about it.

  “Well, no,” I said, “but that could just make him a goth.”

  Which I had always assumed he was.

  “Did you ever wake up with a stiff neck in the morning after going out with him the evening before?” Sheppard asked the question like he already knew the answer.

  I froze. It had happened a number of times, actually. With the what little free cash I was able to squirrel away now and again, I had been cycling through brand after brand of pillows trying to find one that wouldn’t make my neck stiff.

  He tapped the screen of the phone in his hand a few times and then turned it so I could see a picture of skin with two neat little puckered pink scars. I stared, uncomprehending.

  “That’s on the back of your neck,” he said growling. “That worthless bloodsucker had been feeding on you.”

  No. That didn’t make any sense. It wasn’t like it was a logical leap to agree that vampires were real if werewolves were, but that my friend is one? And he fed on me?! My heart thumped against my ribcage.

  “T-there—” I stuttered. “That’s just a picture you pulled off the internet.”

  He gestured toward the door. “The bathroom’s down the hall. Go see for yourself if you don’t believe me.”

  There was a seething anger to his words, but it was tempered with restraint. He was pissed, but I was relatively certain he wasn’t pissed at me.

  I raced to the bathroom and turned on the light. I leaned my head, craning my neck so that I could use the mirror on the medicine cabinet door to catch my reflection in the wall-to-wall mirror above the vanity. A cold shock ran down my spine. Right there, behind and below my left ear, closer to the back of my neck. The same pinprick puckered scars that Sheppard had just shown me. I ran my fingers over the slightly raised scars. I couldn’t recall when the first stiff-necked morning was. Tears welled in my eyes, and my heart pounded. Self-conscious, I covered them with my hand as I slowly walked back to the office at the end of the hallway.

  Sheppard hugged me as I returned and closed the door to the office, shutting us in. Tears streamed down my face.

  “That was another thing we had hoped to protect you from,” he said slowly as I wiped at my face with my hands.

  He guided me to the chair and handed me a box
of tissues from one of the shelves. I pulled my knees to my chest, setting my bare feet on the edge of the chair.

  “Another thing we failed to protect you from.”

  I pulled a couple of tissues from the box and dabbed at my eyes.

  The quiet anger was back in his voice. “The club that vampire—Frederick—frequents is a stronghold in the city. Our pack isn’t large or strong enough to raid it yet.”

  I squirmed in the chair and looked away, balling up my used tissue, as I tried to push swarming thoughts into order so I could ask questions.

  “But these,” I gestured to my neck. “What does being fed on have anything to do with me being consanguinea?”

  Sheppard closed his eyes, composing himself. “Humans get addicted to being fed on. The vampires make them forget, but it doesn’t matter. Something in their bite makes a human—a sheep—seek out the vampire that fed on them over and over until the bloodsucker eventually kills them.”

  My wolf lurched in me at that. It was a sensation I didn’t understand, but I knew there was something she was trying to say.

  He met my eyes, and I was certain his were more golden then they had been moments before. “But that doesn’t happen to consanguinea. The blessing within their bloodline protects them.” He nodded at me. “You’ve been fed on enough by that vampire that you should be antsy and agitated, looking for whatever way you can escape to go to him, so he could feed on you again.”

  “But I’m not,” I said. “Because I’m consanguinea.”

  “Exactly.”

  I let the silence stretch a moment. I couldn’t keep focusing on the scars on my neck—the violation. It was too much. Swallowing around that stupid lump in my throat again, I blew out my breath slowly, trying to compose myself. “What does being consanguinea have to do with this 'cure' the vampires are looking for?”

  Sheppard leaned against the windowsill. I turned the chair to face him.

  “They think that because they were made from the blood of Christ, they can use direct descendants to fix the monster they became. As far as we can tell, they think the accident of their existence is that they can't walk in the day and that they can't reproduce without exchanging blood with a human.”

  “How did a few drops of Christ's blood create such monsters?” If I'm going to be thrown into this fight—and it looked like I was, no matter if I wanted it or not—I had better understand why.

  “It wasn't just his moment of doubt,” Sheppard replied. “As Christ suffered on the cross, he took on the weight of all the world's sins from now until the end of time—the evil of all those sins—so that they may die with him and be forgiven. In his moment of doubt, he was guilty of every sin humanity could ever conceive. But with his death, the blood was cleansed, and the sins were forgiven.”

  I leaned forward, resting my elbows on my knees. “Sounds like that puts you and your pack firmly on the 'unwavering loyalty to the church' side of things.”

  Sheppard laughed without humor, the sound rumbling in his chest. “Not anymore. Every member of this pack is someone who used to be human, someone who used to have a life and a path all of their own, yourself included. I wanted Matt to protect you because you deserved to live your life as you wanted to live it. When the church found out I was tracking a consanguinea, they tried to order me to change you and bring you in to them so they could train you exactly as they'd like you to be trained.”

  I can only imagine how that would have gone. Likely something like the first day I woke up here, but maybe with a lot less pain. Except he had said the attack had to almost kill you, right? So maybe not. I pressed my lips into a line.

  “As if they had a right to tell me what to do in my own territory.” He shook his head. “No, the dogmatic packs are much more militaristic. They have a strict structure and hierarchy that isn't up for discussion. The hierarchy of my pack is fluid because it is what makes us a pack. Regular wolf packs know which member is best for which situation and work accordingly. The dogmatic packs leave no room for questions of who outranks whom. Anyone who would dare question that is pushed down the ranks or pushed out.”

  The hierarchy is fluid—except I got the feeling that Sheppard’s authority as alpha was uncontested.

  He paused for a moment, regarding me in what felt like a very paternal way. My wolf reveled in the feeling.

  “If you survived their training,” he said quietly, “you'd be placed in a pack of their choosing, your family would be notified of whatever story they'd made up for you, and your entire life would be left behind. You would be expected to do as you're told or you would be disciplined in whatever way the alpha saw fit.”

  I rolled my eyes. “That sounds just wonderful.”

  “They fight a good fight,” Sheppard said. “The same good fight that we do. They are at their best when they've caught the scent of a brood. Dogmatic packs eliminate vampires with precision, and they still keep humanity safe. They just seem to have left all of their own humanity behind as they do it. Still, it's true that we owe all that we are to the church.”

  “So the vampires want consanguinea to fix themselves, but they want the ones that are easy to take to keep themselves hidden so that y—” I caught myself again. “Us wolves don't come and wipe them out. You knew I was consanguinea, but left me alone until I started spending time with a vampire. So what happens to consanguinea that fall victim to the vampires?"

  Wow, I really just asked that question. Vampires and werewolves were real, I’m a werewolf, and I’m actually related to the Jesus of Nazareth. Great.

  Sheppard shrugged. "There's no telling, really. Torture is certain though—and for a long while without the clean release of death. Odds are good they wouldn't chance the blood losing its potency.”

  I suppressed a shudder. "So how come they haven’t found their cure already?”

  “They weren’t even looking until about 150 years ago.” He anticipated the question on my face as he continued. “That was when a vampire was temporarily able to walk in the daylight after feeding on what was presumably a consanguinea. We don’t know for sure, but ever since then, the vampires have been trying to get their hands on them without making it look like that’s what they’re doing, They don’t seem to have a good handle on where to find consanguinea, though, they just keeping looking in a sort of spiderweb pattern from where they found the last.”

  Consanguinea blood could let a vampire walk in the daylight. That seemed less than ideal to say the least. “Does that happen to any vampire who drinks consanguinea blood?”

  Sheppard pressed his lips in a line and thought for a moment. “Probably not. It’s hard for us to know exactly what the vampires know, though. They aren’t exactly forthcoming with their enemy.”

  My head swam again. How had I managed to get myself into all of this? Why did it have to be me that the crazed wolf attacked? I was just a girl. My eyes filled with tears and my head fell into my hands. A sudden warmth brushed against my shoulder and spread through me. Like yesterday, she was there again—my wolf—leaning her strength against me. I took a struggling breath and my vision cleared. Sheppard kept his hand on my shoulder.

  “I was never just a girl,” I whispered.

  “No,” Sheppard said softly.

  “That wolf was always supposed to have attacked me.”

  “Truly, that was something we weren't quite prepared for.” He released my shoulder and crossed his arms. “We knew you did work for the news station sometimes, and we were pretty sure you weren't a reporter, so when you decided to go hiking off the running trails on the reserve, Matt had to improvise. He couldn't follow quite as close as he would like. He wasn't supposed to let you get hurt, but there was only so close he could follow without scaring you.”

  I mean, with a face like Matt’s, who could blame him? It’s a wonder I hadn’t ever noticed him myself. Scars like that would definitely have stuck in my mind’s eye.

  He shook his head. “He's phenomenal in a fight and a great tracker, but he's
not the stealthiest of us.”

  I sighed and bit my lip. “So if all of the pack used to have normal lives,” I said slowly, “then they all had a circle of friends and family before they became pack.” I looked at Sheppard's feet. “Do any of them still?”

  “Of course,” he said. “Daniel's a big-shot lawyer. He takes cases all over the country to help corporations out with their international contracts. He's got friends in every major city. Chastity's family lives in the mountains. Every month she takes a weekend and spends it with them. Ian is actually so close with his circle of friends that we hardly ever see him, but he always comes back to us to recharge, and he's always there when we need him.”

  I looked over my shoulder at the latest and greatest phone on the desk. “What happens if I tell my friends what I am?”

  Sheppard shrugged. “I can’t stop you from telling them, but they wouldn’t believe you anyway.” He pushed off the windowsill and put his hands in his pockets. “And if they did happen to believe you, I would question their sanity.”

  Well, he was probably right about that one at least. I stood from the chair. “I think I have a few phone calls to make.”

  Sheppard smiled and stepped over to the door. “Take whatever time you need,” he said, opening it. “I just recommend you stay here with us, since that vamp insists upon hanging around your apartment. I am certain that one's tied to the cave on the reserve somehow. I can feel it in my bones.”

  I opened my mouth to ask another question, but he made a shoo-ing motion with his hand.

  “Make your phone calls,” he said, stepping from the room. “The vampires will still be there.” He winked at me and shut the door.

  NINE

  I STARED AT THE BLANK screen of the new phone. Frederick was a vampire? My hand went to the scars on my neck. And he fed on me? Though my inner truth-o-meter practically screamed that what Sheppard said had definitely not been a lie, I couldn’t help but wish it was made up. I scrolled through the contacts and found Frederick’s number.

  “Hullo?” He sounded tired, like I had woken him up.