by Lauren Dawes
Half Blood
A Helheim wolf pack tale
By Lauren Dawes
Copyright © 2012 by Lauren Dawes
First Edition, 2012
The right of Lauren Dawes to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her under the Copyright Amendment (Moral Rights) Act 2000
Published in Australia
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the author, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review.
All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
A SIN: B007SDE238
Cover image © 2012 by Dreamstime stock images
This book is dedicated to my wonderful husband Phil. For all your support, love and encouragement. I don’t think I could have done it without you.
Prologue
James Vincent’s earliest memory of his mother was ripply; distorted—like looking through warped glass. He could see her standing above him, looking at him—not with love in her eyes like a mother should—but rather with malice. Her viperous anger towards him was as palpable as the hand on his chest holding his small body down. His arms and legs were flailing around aimlessly, looking for purchase, but finding none.
He was suddenly able to breathe again. When the water cleared from his eyes, he found his father’s arms wrapped around his mother’s torso, holding her back. They were screaming at each other, but he couldn’t make out the words. His father’s strong arms were suddenly around him, lifting him out of the cold water and holding him close to his warm chest.
He was sat on the bed with blankets around him, watching his father pack a big suitcase for himself and a small one for James filled with his toys. James didn’t understand what was happening at the time, but he understood his mother’s look of smug triumph when his father carried him out the door that same night.
When James was ten, his father died in a car accident leaving him no choice but to go back to his mother. By that time though, his mother was no longer the secretary for a failing tyre store, but a hooker turning tricks to make ends meet.
The shame of selling her body broke his mother. Her desperation to cleanse her soul and her body came in the form of a whiskey bottle. After she doused the fire of regret from her body, she took to beating James; cracking multiple ribs at a time, opening up new cuts that spilled crimson tears down his cheeks, or breaking his fingers during her many alcohol-fuelled rages.
When James was twelve, his mother dragged him to the seediest bar in the next town over to sell her body to anyone willing. She’d brought James along with her because he’d started running away from her whenever she left the house. The evening was slow. She’d only managed a few blow jobs in the bathroom, but she had earned enough cash for a cheap bottle of whiskey. When she’d finished that bottle, she needed another. Desperation drove her to sell James to a childless waiter for another hit.
A few days later, the police found James wandering the streets, looking through garbage bins for scraps of food. He was returned to his mother, not telling them the real reason he was out on the streets. His mother punished him for “running away” from her in the only way that she knew. This was the first time that she sexually abused him; tying him to the bed, forcing him into arousal then telling him he was a disgusting boy for enjoying it.
For years, the vicious cycle was perpetuated by liquor and self-loathing until he was old enough to fight her off and defend himself. At the age of seventeen, James came home to find his mother passed out on the couch in front of the TV with a pool of vomit on the floor next to her. She’d spent the entire day drinking again. He went to his bedroom wishing he could have unseen what he’d seen, but he couldn’t. There was always that pull to still help her when she drank herself into a stupor.
When he went back through to the kitchen, he heard gagging coming from the living room. He stood in the doorway and watched his mother choke on her own vomit; her eyes bulging and desperate—her air supply running out quickly. The low, desperate noises she was making down in the back of her throat called to him. Against everything that roared through his body to just leave her there, he stepped into the room. Her wide eyes darted to him, begging him to help her. James felt himself being torn in two; like the very fabric he’d been cut from was ripping in half violently. With a shudder, he refocused on his mother. He took a step forward; one part of him wanting to help her—she was his mother after all. But then there was another part of him—this darker, hidden part that wanted her to suffer every cruelty she had ever inflicted on him.
His mother died on their sofa, surrounded in cooling vomit––her son watching on with a cruel smile twisted on his lips.
Chapter 1
Detective Vaile Wolfe stuck his pen into the little pile of ashes he was crouched over and stirred. The burnt remains, picked up by the slight breeze from the mouth of the alleyway got stuck in his nostrils, forcing a low growl out from between his lips.
What a goddamn fucking mess. The wolf that shared his body shifted uneasily; the scent of the blood awakening his baser instincts. He could feel his lupine form move under his skin—under his ribs—stirring to life restlessly. He’d denied the Change for nearly two weeks, sending the flashing red light of warning off in his head. He was putting the cops he worked with in danger with every day that passed. He muttered a few words under his breath to calm the beast and stood up, unable to avoid looking at the huge puddles of blood at his feet. He’d be seeing red for a fucking week.
‘Did you find anything?’ he asked the officer that had been assigned to him just that morning. He’d chewed through a dozen rookies in the last six months and he had a feeling that this guy wasn’t going to make it much past sundown. Vaile had a rep for being a sonofabitch to work with and that was just the way he liked it.
This new kid was all WASP. His pale eyes were wide as he took in the carnage around him. Vaile had caught him puking in the dumpster next to the crime scene. As soon as he’d seen the blood, he’d gone as white as a sheet and ran. He could still smell the stuff on his breath.
‘No sir. Nothing yet,’ he replied perfunctorily. Vaile’s lips flexed into a parody of a smile. At least this kid knew who was Top Dog, not like the last cocky bastard he had had working for him. ‘We’re just waiting for forensics to show up, sir.’ The kid turned back to look at the puddles. ‘Sir, where’s the body?’
‘There ain’t no body kid. It’s obvious that this was the kill site. The body’s been dumped someplace else.’ What the WASP didn’t know was that two of his pack had taken the stiff a few hours before they’d even got the call from a sanitation worker reporting a lot of blood down an alleyway that morning. The cops weren’t ever going to find the body either because by now it would be nothing but ash. The other thing they didn’t know was that a vampire had been given its Final Death in that alleyway, but they would never recognise the signs. Humans only saw what they wanted to see. To them, the ashes that littered the ground in that goddamned frozen, filthy alleyway were the remnants from a hobo barrel fire, not the last resting place of a blood-sucking parasite.
The kid swallowed convulsively, his throat working over a lump; his skin turning a pale shade of green. ‘You going to puke again?’ Vaile barked.
‘No sir,’ he replied in a shaky breath. His fear was coming off his body in waves, causing a sneer to pull at Vaile’s top lip. He got up in his face, taking him by the collar of his shirt and pulling the guy
in close to his massive body. Intimidation factor? He would have said around a ten.
‘Because if you are, you’re not working with me. You can just go back to the station now and get desk-raped,’ he growled.
Vaile hadn’t thought it possible, but the kid swallowed the green and blanched out even further than his already pasty skin. ‘I’m fine,’ he replied with a quavering voice.
What a fucking lightweight. Vaile gave him a hard look and pushed him away, causing him to stumble into the dumpster. He walked back to a beat cop waiting just inside the yellow police tape. Beyond him—at the mouth of the alleyway—were rubberneckers wanting to see a glimpse of the carnage. Although another officer was placed there, arms outstretched and desperately trying to stop the click-click of the camera phones, they still managed to get an uninterrupted view. Sometimes Vaile thought humans were more bloodthirsty than the wolf that shared his body. Looking away from them in disgust, he asked, ‘What did you see when you got here last night Mack?’
Mack was a lycanthrope too. Werewolves made good cops. It was as simple as that. His pale green eyes flecked with brown met Vaile’s for a split second before dropping. ‘A human male drained of blood. That was all.’
Vaile grunted. ‘Were you told anything else other than to get your ass down here?’
‘No. Just that there was a body. But judging by the smell, and—’ he kicked his toe into the ashes at his feet, ‘I’d say a vampire got four-twentied here too.’
Vaile grunted again. He didn’t know who had given the vamp the cure for life, but he was goddamn elated that they had. He was a damn good cop and an even better detective, but the stench of the vampire was cancelling out the scent of any humans that may have been involved at the scene of the crime. To his sensitive nose, all he could smell was burning, rotten garbage topped off with a healthy dollop of cow shit.
‘So who was the guy we picked up last night?’ Vaile turned and spat on the ground; the nasty taste of the blood-sucker had coated the back of his tongue. After he wiped the back of his hand over his mouth, he turned back to Mack. Vaile didn’t need to worry about the police report cataloguing the sample because it was going to mysteriously disappear in the near future.
Mack shrugged. ‘No wallet on the body, but he was dressed too nice which is unusual for this area. Maybe he was a Renfield and the vamp lured him here. Maybe he was just unlucky.’
Renfields. Weren’t they a treat? They were humans who believed vampires were real, who regularly donated their blood to other humans pretending to be vampires. Ignorant fuckers. And they wondered why HIV was spreading through the human population like wildfire.
Vaile drew in a deep breath and coughed. ‘Goddamn vampires. I hate their fucking stench.’
‘Tell me about it,’ Mack replied in a drawl.
Just then the forensic crew arrived in their signature white van, parking outside the alleyway’s only entrance. The Uniformed began pushing people out of the way again, trying to make room for them to get out of the van. ‘Hey kid!’ Vaile called out. When he couldn’t see his blond hair, he marched over to the closest dumpster and peered over the other side. The kid had curled himself up into a ball in a pool of his own vomit. ‘Ah, fuck.’ He called over the other cop. ‘Mack? Come give me a hand, will ya?’
Vaile drove him and his “partner” back to the station after Mack and him had got him into the back of his unmarked. Sure Vaile could have lifted the kid no problem, but hauling a grown man around on your shoulder like he weighed nothing drew too much unwanted attention.
There was a groan, and when he looked into his rear view mirror, the rookie was coming to just as the car humped into the car park behind the station. The smell of vomit had permeated through the car thanks to the kid, and no amount of Febreeze was going to get that shit out.
‘Get out and get reassigned,’ he barked, slamming his car door behind him. He navigated his way to the building’s back door without looking back to see if the kid had got out or not. When he reached the heavy steel door, he heard the door of his unmarked pop open and close straight after. Hauling open the heavy door, he walked into central command.
People were everywhere. Vaile passed through the security check point, disarming himself and producing his badge. When he was finally through, he slipped his holster back on again as he walked up the stairs. At the top, he hung a left.
His office had about twenty people in there, each sitting behind a computer with three soft walls. It was partition heaven. Parking it behind his desk, he turned on his computer and clicked into his emails. He’d been working the Buxton rapist case, and the latest medical report was front and centre. He opened up the email and scrolled through the three-page report, skimming it for anything that was useful. So far nothing viable had been collected from the women or the scenes. The sick fucker was getting more violent with them too. He’d started just by threatening the girls with cutting them up, but now he was following through on the threat. The last girl had a broken jaw and a fractured cheek bone thanks to the bastard.
Kicking out of his chair, he went to the kitchenette they had in the back corner of the office to make himself a cup of instant. It tasted terrible, but at least it got rid of the taste of vampire that was still sticking to the back of his tongue. He took another sip and from over the lip of his coffee cup, he saw his boss walking towards him.
‘Wolfe. My office. Now.’
‘You got it,’ he replied, walking casually back to the desk to dump his still-full coffee cup.
‘Sit down,’ his boss said as soon as he’d shut the door to his office behind him. His boss’s name was D'Angelo. His dark hair had started going grey around the sides, but his black eyes were still sharp. ‘I’ve just spoken to Hauptmann. He says he wants off your service.’
‘Really?’
‘Don’t give me that fucking tone Wolfe. Jesus!’ He ran a hand through the grey. ‘You only had him for … fuck, like two hours.’
‘He’s not cut out for the work. He’s a beat cop at best. And besides, I’ve already told you that I prefer working alone.’
D'Angelo’s blood pressure went up a few clicks. ‘You know what, if you weren’t my best detective, I would get your ass transferred someplace else where I don’t have to see you every single damn day.’
‘But I am your best detective,’ Vaile reminded him. ‘And I’m sure you’d miss me.’
D'Angelo opened his mouth to argue again, but a knock on the door saved him. ‘Come in!’ he barked. The door pushed open and the scent of roses wafted in. Vaile’s head swivelled around to see a female officer standing in the doorway. He’d never seen her around the station before, but then again he’d never really looked at human women. What was the point? Love couldn’t transcend species. Lust? Fuck yeah, but love? Not a chance.
‘You wanted to see me, sir?’ she asked, breaking Vaile’s fixation on her. He turned back around in his seat.
‘Grey, come in.’
She shut the door behind her and parked it in the chair next to Vaile. The scent of roses grew stronger, but it wasn’t her perfume. It was something fainter than that. Maybe it was her soap or shampoo or some shit. ‘You expressed interest in working with Detective Wolfe. Does your interest still stand?’ his boss said.
Vaile looked over at her and wondered why in the hell she would volunteer to spend time with him.
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Congratulations. You’ve been reassigned. Now get your asses over to Buxton Gen. There’s another girl been brought in overnight—rape suspect. Get a statement. See if we can’t finally nail this guy’s ass to the wall.’
Vaile stood up, Grey shadowing him. ‘You got it,’ Vaile rumbled.
Chapter 2
One week earlier …
Indi knew he’d be trouble the first moment she laid eyes on him. Men in suits were always a problem for her. She felt like she’d had the words “harass me asshole” tattooed onto her forehead from birth. And of course he was sitting in her sect
ion. Her anger prickled over her skin ever so softly, but she shoved the feeling away; sucking in a deep breath and walking over to his table.
‘Do you want me to take him for you?’
Indi turned to look at the only other male friend she had besides her brother. Rhett had only been working at Jerry’s for a few months, but she felt as if she’d known him her entire life. Rhett’s mismatched eyes were soft and cautious. He had heterochromia which meant that one of his eyes was a light sky-blue and the other a pale pistachio-green.
He pushed the six-foot-four mark; his broad shoulders tapering down to a narrow waist and muscular legs. He didn’t look like much with his clothes on, but Indi had accidently walked in on him when he was changing out of his uniform one evening after the café had closed, and he was packing some serious muscle under his Hanes.
She smiled, shaking her head at him. ‘Nah, I’m good.’ She rubbed the back of her neck, working some kinks out as she prepared herself to talk to the customer in her section. Plastering a fake smile on her lips, she made her way over to him. The guy’s dark eyes watched her with all the eagerness of a hungry predator.
Her skin crawled with anger. She wanted nothing more than to stop him looking at her like something delectable. Shaking off the murderous impulse, Indi pressed her omnipresent anger further down into her belly. Sometimes she felt as if her anger was an actual Thing inside her; a giant black cat wanting to claw its way out of her body when she let it get out of control.
‘Hi. What can I get you?’ she asked, keeping her voice light and easy.