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

by Becca Lynn Mathis

  “She must feel so isolated.”

  I smiled. “That’s why I’m bringing family to meet her.”

  Elias nodded.

  I parked on the street in front of the modern glass house, noting the other vehicles present. By the looks of it, Sheppard’s whole pack was home.

  Sheppard stood at the open door by the time Elias and I reached the porch steps, the warmth of his scent mixing with his pack and wafting out the front door. It was a subtle reminder that I was in their territory, and a sharp contrast to Elias’ antiseptic scent.

  “Good to see you, sir,” Sheppard said, extending his hand.

  I shook it. Over his shoulder, I could see most of his pack had gathered in the living room.

  “Please come in,” Sheppard said, gesturing into the living room. “We can speak in the dining room.”

  I followed him, Elias a step or two behind me. The girl was seated to the left of the head of the table. His redheaded woman sat next to her, a laptop open in front of her.

  “How many of these houses are you going to go through, Sheppard?” He’d had seven houses burn to the ground in the past 15 years alone. And those were just the ones I knew about.

  He glanced over his shoulder at me. “As many as it takes, sir, until the vampires are gone.”

  A shame. His insurance rates had to be astronomical.

  The girl raised an eyebrow at the honorific and then looked sharply at me, her steel-grey eyes meeting mine without fear. I smiled at her.

  Sheppard pulled out the chair to the right of the head of the table as he passed and sat at the head of the table. “Thank you for coming so quickly.”

  “Of course,” I replied, sitting in the seat Sheppard had pulled out for me. “It sounded important.”

  Sheppard nodded. “It is.” He looked to the redheaded girl. “Chastity?”

  The redhead, Chastity, looked at him and eyed me before spinning the laptop around. The machine reeked of vampire, but I kept my expression neutral as I looked at the screen. Where the hell had they gotten a vampire’s laptop anyway? The dens under the Chateau?

  I focused on the file she had open. It was the consanguinea bloodline.

  “They know how to track consanguinea now,” Sheppard said.

  I read names and tried to recall the last time I had seen the lineage we had on file. “How up-to-date is that file?”

  “It’s accurate,” Sheppard said. “Lynn’s on it.”

  Lynn? Not Grace then. Interesting that she would make that change. Still, that file could be twenty-two years old. Though—admittedly—the line hadn’t jumped families in the girl’s lifetime.

  “Hm.” I rubbed the stubble on my chin. “The church will want to know right away.”

  Sheppard nodded. “And I knew you would know who needed this information best, sir.”

  “Indeed. I’ll need a copy for our records.”

  “Of course.” Sheppard nodded to Chastity, who tossed a flash drive across the table to me. I caught it and placed it in my shirt pocket.

  “Who’s your friend?” Lynn asked, jutting her chin toward Elias.

  “Ah,” I said, straightening in my seat and meeting her eyes. “Forgive my impropriety.” I gestured to Elias. “This is Second Lieutenant Elias Clark. He’s a doctor. You can call him Elias.”

  She narrowed her eyes at him, but her nose twitched. She was scenting him out. “I’m not sick.”

  I smiled at her. “Of course not. But he’s also consanguinea, which makes him a cousin of yours.”

  Her eyes widened. Sheppard’s narrowed.

  “Elias has an ability that rather uniquely suits him,” I told her. “He takes the injuries of others unto himself, healing them. He then heals at an accelerated rate, even for a lupine.”

  “All werewolves heal fast,” Chastity spat. Sheppard speared her with a look and she spun the laptop back around and snapped it closed.

  As she stood, she picked up the laptop and went to sit on one of the couches in the living room. She sat sideways, facing a coffee table and reopened the laptop, the screen facing away from me. I watched her with quiet amusement. Natural packs like Sheppard’s ran by different rules. There was no real hierarchy within his pack, just the alpha and the rest of them.

  “Elias heals faster than any lupine we have on record,” I continued. “He helps people that even modern medicine would fail to save.”

  The girl’s mouth fell open. Got her.

  Sheppard folded his hands on the table. “How is your program doing these days, sir?”

  I smiled at him. “We now have over a ninety percent turn success rate. Thanks to DNA mapping, we can identify which recruits would be a good match from the moment they get their physical. Through their training, we learn who has the mental acuity.”

  Sheppard smiled, though something hid behind that smile. “That’s impressive, sir, only about half of natural crazed attacks end in a viable pack member.”

  I nodded at him. “Once we’ve turned them, we match them with an alpha and their real training begins.” I looked across the table at the girl. “But consanguinea are a cut above. Because of their value and rarity, they are given much more freedom and leniency than any other military operative. Forget that crap Langley fed you.” I made a sour face. “If you come with me, you’ll never be asked to do something you weren’t already willing to do, and I’ll give you the training and tools necessary to make you capable of anything you set your mind to.”

  She smiled then. It was something feral. Perfection. She was going to be hell-on-wheels in a pack. And I was pretty sure I knew just the right alpha to keep her in line.

  “That reminds me,” Sheppard said. “Kaylah, could you bring Hayley down here?”

  “Sure.” The blonde on the couch uncurled herself and hurried up the stairs. She spoke in quiet tones upstairs. “C’mon hun, yer ride’s here.” She came back downstairs, her arm around a human girl, barely eighteen, with dyed blonde hair and wide set blue eyes. She wore a black t-shirt two sizes too large for her, knotted into a crop top and hanging off a shoulder. Her grey sweatpants were probably two sizes too large for her too, but at least they had a drawstring securely tied at her waist.

  There were four lines of parallel pink scars on her stomach, their edges rough, like she was torn open. Curious.

  “General Buckheim, sir,” Sheppard said, “This is Haley Bennett. She needs to disappear. Safely.” He met my eyes, his expression earnest.

  Elias, gentle as ever, reached for the girl as she came into the dining room. He did a basic check to see if she was injured. The poor girl’s eyes were vacant, like a drugged sheep.

  “Take her to Blood of the Cross,” I waved my hand vaguely. “Like you do the rest of the sheep.”

  Sheppard shook his head and crossed his arms. “There’s a Jane Doe at Blood of the Cross that needs to disappear as well. She probably remembered what her name is by now, but she was unconscious when she left us. Neither are sheep.”

  I narrowed my eyes at him. The girl—Lynn—sat back in her chair and watched me. She still wore her feral smile. Gold circled the pupils of her eyes.

  “What is this about, boy? Why do they need to disappear?” I gestured across the table. “Why does she look like she just ate the last cookie in front of the schoolyard bully?”

  Sheppard leaned forward in his seat and folded his hands on the table again. “I’m not at liberty to discuss such matters with the military, sir.” He looked pointedly at my ear.

  I met his eyes, my expression hardening. His did the same. The girl folded her arms across her chest.

  Sheppard and I had a long history. He was still a pup when I first met him over four hundred years ago. I had saved him then from the vampires that killed his family. He and I had been trading favors ever since. We had gotten each other out of tough spots before, and his expression now told me he was in another. Just what had this consanguinea done?

  Sighing, I nodded once and unclipped the keys from my belt loop. �
�Elias.” I handed the keys to him. “Take Miss Bennett and get the Jane Doe from Blood of the Cross.” I looked to Sheppard. “Description?”

  Sheppard looked to Elias. “College-aged, tall, curvy, tanned skin, long black hair.”

  I nodded again, and half turned in my seat. “Use my credentials in the glovebox if you need to. Then take both back to the base and get their paperwork started. I’m sure Sheppard will give me a ride back to the base.”

  “Sir!” Elias’ eyes widened. “All due respect, sir. That will leave you without backup.”

  I waved his objection away. “This pack’s no threat to me, Elias. Go on now.”

  Elias pressed his lips into a line and looked at Sheppard. He then looked back at me and nodded once. He escorted the girl to the door, and the house was still until the car drove away.

  I unbuttoned the top button of my shirt and removed my ear wire, making a show of disconnecting it from its power source. If history had been any indication, Sheppard needed a discussion that was entirely off-the-record. He needed to be sure the only ones in the room were me and his pack. I took my phone from my pocket and opened the back, removing the battery and leaving it beside the phone on the table.

  I sighed then and pinched the bridge of my nose. “We go too far back to keep secrets, boy. What’s this about?”

  Sheppard smiled at me and pointed at the door. “That girl and the Jane Doe used to be werewolves.”

  Used to be?

  “What do you mean they ‘used to be werewolves’?”

  Sheppard looked to the girl on his left. Lynn.

  “He means they used to be crazed wolves,” she said, her voice calm, “destined for a ‘merciful death’.” She unfolded her arms and put air quotes around the last two words.

  I narrowed my eyes at her. “And you changed that?”

  She met my eyes. “And I changed that,” she confirmed, nodding once.

  I had never heard of such an ability. A consanguinea that could turn werewolves human again? It seemed impossible.

  “She can also turn vampires to dust,” Sheppard added.

  My eyebrows tried to crawl off my head. She could start another bloodbath, the likes of which I haven't seen since the Crusades. Only hers would be covered in dust and written in the annals of history with the chalky bones of dead vampires. I may have been a young pup then, but the image of bodies piled as high as a house flashed in my mind, clear as day. Hers would be piles of ash.

  “I’m not going anywhere with you General Buckheim,” she said, cool control in her voice. “This is my pack. I have made my choice, this is where I belong.” Her steel-grey eyes sparkled with the declaration.

  I stared at her. No. She couldn’t choose this pack. The church would do all they could to manipulate her to join their side of the fight. It would be better—easier—for her if she just chose to come along willingly. And this ability she had would only make the church leadership want her more.

  “The last time the church knew about a consanguinea like her, they deemed it too great a threat and culled it.” Sheppard stood and stepped behind the girl, placing his hands on her shoulders. “But she’s made her choice, and the pack will defend it.”

  It was impossible to miss the meaning of that last phrase. The pack would kill to defend her right to stay with them. And if she could turn werewolves to human again, nothing could stop them. Humans were chaff compared to werewolves.

  “It would simply be too much trouble for the military to take her by force,” I said, meeting Sheppard’s eyes.

  He nodded. We were on the same page. “The costs would be tremendous. You’d lose too many valuable assets.”

  “And you’re gonna owe me a favor for helping to lose those two former wolves in the system.”

  Sheppard smiled and crossed his arms. “I am, aren’t I, sir?” There was amusement in his eyes.

  The girl’s face lit up and she turned to Sheppard with a sharp intake of breath. “I know what I want to do.”

  He furrowed his brow, glanced at me, and then sat back at the head of the table. He canted his seat, so he could face her better.

  “I want to help those that go crazed,” she said, “the ones like Hayley and the other girl. The ones that wouldn’t survive otherwise.”

  She could literally wipe the Earth clean of the existence of vampires, and she preferred to help the crazed wolves. That sort of short-sightedness would never make it in a military pack. Which means she would never make it. Any of my alphas would push her to destroy vamps instead of help the moonraged.

  Sheppard placed a hand on hers. “You’re sure?”

  She nodded. “I am. In the diner, when Matt said that I might die the night of the full moon, I was terrified.” She scooted to the edge of her chair. Her enthusiasm was nearly palpable. “But don’t you see? No one has to die anymore.”

  Blessed Mother of Christ, she was right. Sheppard sat up and stared at her.

  She glanced at me and then met Sheppard’s eyes. “You couldn’t push those two back into their human form.” She waved toward the hallway. “But I,” she placed her hand on her chest, “I pulled the wolf from them entirely.”

  She laid her warm hand on top of mine on the table and met my eyes. “You have over a ninety percent success rate, but what happens to the other ten percent? How many recruits do you put down because they raged at the full moon?”

  Too many. Last year, we lost seventeen men to the moonrage. This year, we had already lost fourteen. I tried to keep my expression neutral, but I saw on her face that I had failed. She was right. I pinched the bridge of my nose with the hand she wasn’t touching.

  She squeezed my hand. “Good men don’t have to die anymore, General.”

  I met her eyes. She meant every word of what she said. God bless her.

  “No more ‘training accidents’,” Sheppard said, putting air quotes around the last two words. His eyes were red, and tears had gathered. He knew.

  I looked hard at the hand on top of mine. That hand could turn even me to human if she wanted to. A chill ran down my spine. Sheppard had just made a play to become the strongest alpha in North America, likely the world. Even if the church found out about her, they were going to have a hell of a time trying to get her now.

  I sighed. And it was only a matter of time before the church found out, given her plan to save moonraged wolves.

  “You have the right of it, boy. I’ll come up with something for the report. The church won’t hear about her from me or mine.” I stood, collecting my ear wire, phone, and battery. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I would appreciate a ride back to the base.”

  Sheppard smiled. “Of course. I’m glad we could come to an agreement.”

  I nodded and followed him back out the front door, glancing back at the girl. She was going to change the rules of the game, assuming she even knew there was a game being played.