“No, they won’t. They were relentless when they chased after us.”
Charly sighed. What time was it now? It had to be evening by this point. Would Kyle be coming in the morning with help like Emma promised? Everything had gone quiet, though every once in a while a sound from one of the windows would remind her they weren’t alone—that at any moment, the werewolves would try to break inside again. Slowly, they scraped away at the defenses. Sooner or later, they’d get inside.
To end the silence, she tried to bring up a conversation that made her feel good. The good memories she had growing up in the compound. There weren’t many, but she had a few. “I’m not originally from Las Vegas.”
“Really?” Trenton rubbed his chin and smirked. “I picked you for the city type.”
She rested her head against his shoulder as a feeling coursed over her that she tried to hold tight to: Contentment. “My mom had me in rural northern Michigan. Outside of the compound. She’d briefly left with my father and settled there. I was so young at the time, but I have snapshots in my mind of the good times. Early morning breakfast with baked apples on pancakes, a bedtime ritual where my mom and I sang silly songs until I fell asleep.” She laughed, and then sighed. “I wished we’d stayed there, but eventually, she took me back to the compound.”
“Why?”
“She’s good at what she does.” Charly played with her hands to calm her nerves. “Mom felt guilt for abandoning the coven with such a dire threat under our feet.”
“The blood demon.” The way Trenton said it, he understood just how dangerous the blood demon was.
“Yes,” Charly confirmed. “I’ve never seen the box in person. Only the elders. I just know it’s so terrible my mom took me away from a rural life to go back to being raised by the coven. She kept saying it was our duty.”
“We all have to make choices we don’t agree with—like you coming here. Did you have a choice?”
“They forced me to become a werewolf and threatened to kill my mom if I didn’t.”
“So, you see?” he said with a serious tone. “You came here all alone—for her.”
“I’m just like them.”
“Are you sure?” A hint of smile touched his lips. “I see far more than that.”
She shrugged off his words. What could he say that would take away her shame?
He reached for her hand and took it, even when she tried to hide it. “All I saw was someone who knew what it felt like to be alone. That much I could smell on you.”
“Why did you come to Hadley?” she asked, hoping he’d take the bait to change the subject.
“I used to live in a werewolf colony in Colorado. Everything was perfect, the mountains, the people. I had a perfect life. Until a plague of some kind came through and many died—including my parents and siblings. There was nothing I could do to protect them.”
She grasped his hand and he returned the grip. “You’re the only survivor?” she asked softly.
“Just me and an elder far too old to take care of himself. He told me he’d survived the Spanish flu back when it blew through in the early twentieth century. We managed as long as we could out in the wilderness until he died. After that I hitched rides all over the southwest until I settled in Hadley. They find my police experience valuable here—which I like.”
“I’m sorry about what happened to you.”
“Don’t be. My time alone was good. At first, anyway. After some time though, you come to realize how much you need the basic necessity of companionship. Of love.”
“I’ve always been with the coven,” Charly admitted. “I’ve never been alone until my family forced me to leave. If they hadn’t done that to me, none of this would’ve ever happened.”
For a while, she rested her head on his shoulder and somehow drifted off to sleep. Time passed seamlessly—until she woke up to scraping and clawing coming from all sides. Trenton was gone. She noticed the sounds of footsteps upstairs and hammering as he tried to secure the second story windows.
She rubbed her face, forcing herself to wake up. Why the hell did he let her sleep so long?
One of the boards in the living room fell, and Charly fumbled for the hammer and nails on the coffee table. A clawed hand reached through the gap, the long, yet jagged fingernails grasping for a good grip to rip more wood off. With a roar, Charly swung the hammer down hard on the intruder’s wrist, eliciting a shriek and stream of blood across the floor. Her attacker shrank back, briefly leaving an opening formed by the missing plank.
A horde of six rabid townsfolk gathered in front of a woman and a man in the distance. It was Orland, the man from the park. Yet it was the woman who drew her eye. The blonde pressed her index finger against her lips with a grin. Don’t tell, the woman’s expression said. A flare of anger pulsed through Charly.
The scar along the blonde woman’s cheekbone was all too familiar. She’d gotten it during a blood demon attack. The interweaving tangle of deceit from the coven ran deep. Charly had been the diversion. She had first blamed herself, but it was her mother who infected the Hadley pack.
After she boarded up the breach, the look on Charly’s face sent a chill through Trenton. Her hands trembled and her face had gone ashen white.
“It was her all this time,” she mumbled.
“Who?” He advanced across the room and took the tools from her.
“There’s a man and woman outside. The ones who stand back while the others attack.”
“You must mean Orland. Do you know the woman?”
She nodded. “I’ve met that man before. He’d thought I was my mother a few days ago. He’d called me Zelda.”
Trenton raised his eyebrows. “Is that supposed to mean something?”
“I didn’t think much at the time, but Zelda is my mother’s middle name.” She rubbed her fingers across her forehead. “I just didn’t connect it because she never used that part of her name, not even the initial.”
He touched her shoulder, the skin underneath was warm to the touch. Far warmer than she’d felt last night. The muscles on her arm tightened, as did everything else as her anger built. The scent from her fury was overwhelming, but he didn’t move, choosing to stay by her side.
“All this means you aren’t behind this,” he said softly. “Neither am I.”
“I suspected that already,” she said stiffly, “but I never thought it was my own mother. How could she do this to me! And it still doesn’t fix the enormous problem waiting for us outside.”
He didn’t like seeing her like this. He wished he could take her pain away. “If Kyle and Emma could take down Liam and your aunt, we can do it, too.”
“We?”
“I only see two people standing here,” he said. “You and me.”
She chuffed. “I’m not a witch anymore. Compared to my aunt Amelia, my mother is far stronger in terms of spellcasting. I’m not even an acolyte yet in blood craft.”
She didn’t protest when he pulled her into his arms. A moment of clarity came over him, and he rested his chin on the crown of her head.
“Don’t quit on me now, Charly.”
“I haven’t given up. I need to regroup. I just got tossed under a moving Mack truck.” She chuckled a bit and rested her cheek against his chest. “This helps though.”
He grinned. “What does?”
“You know very well this hug helps. Stop being a smart ass.”
Reluctantly, he released her. When she was at arm’s length, he pulled her in again to brush his lips against hers. The skin of her upper lip was delicious and he couldn’t resist kissing her yet one more time.
She touched her fingertips to her lips in a way that made him want to do more than kiss her. “If we’re going to be fighting, we need our strength.”
Charly had a point there. He couldn’t remember the last time he ate. “I’ll check the kitchen. My nose tells me Ben’s gotta have some something in there.”
“Yeah,” she agreed, “I could use something.�
�
By the time he returned with two bottles of water and two sandwiches, she was perched at the bottom of the steps, her attention focused on the top of the stairwell.
“You hear something?” He took a quick bite of his sandwich.
“They’re climbing all over the house, but something upstairs is bothering me.” She took the offered food.
Trenton finished his meager meal in three bites. “I’ll check it out.”
He walked around upstairs, checking outside through the gaps. There were so many of them out there and only two of them with no firing weapons. Ben had taken anything of value and had hidden it away in the basement.
Holy shit, how can we overrun them? he thought.
“I have to unbind them.”
Her voice emerged from the first floor with finality. He returned to the stairs and paused at a step above her. He searched her eyes and found her dead serious. “That came out of nowhere. How?”
“I don’t have much of my powers left, but I could cast one final spell…If my body allows it.”
“What do you mean allows it?”
“My magic comes from my blood, but now that I’ve become a werewolf my spells require more of it. Binding one being to another is simple. Removing a binding…not so much. I can undo what they’ve done.” She looked away with shame etched into her features. “I can do the same for us, too.”
He clenched his fists and took another step up the stairs, refusing to look at her. While the bond between them had taken away any thoughts of loneliness he’d felt since he’d left the north behind, what she’d done was wrong. Horribly wrong. How could they move beyond what she’d consciously done for her coven? So what if the ulterior motive was to protect the world from the blood demons? She had bound him to her, and he couldn’t tell any more if what he’d felt for her what real or fake. He sighed. But for now, he had to trust it was real. He had to trust it if he wanted both of them to survive.
The sound of broken boards upstairs piqued his attention. He had a job to do: protect the house. Whatever he had to say to Charly would need to wait until after he secured the second floor.
And he had plenty he needed to get off his chest.
At the top of the steps, he looked down to see Charly was gone. Faintly, he heard the locks on the front door come undone. The door opened and someone left, closing it after themselves.
What the fuck is she doing?
Trenton stormed down the steps to the foyer—only to look into the kitchen and discover Orland standing before the safe room’s door. The crowbar in his hands meant one thing: somehow he’d gotten inside and was ready to force his way into the safe room where all the people who hadn’t escaped town now hid.
CHAPTER NINE
Trenton froze.
A smile spread across Orland’s face, his dark features contorting into a menacing sneer. Orland’s grip on the crowbar turned white.
The rumble of a growl stirred in Trenton’s belly and surged toward his throat. “Step away from the door.”
“Come make me, rogue.” Orland always knew how to rub his fur the wrong way. He’d never crossed the Hadley pack’s second-in-command. And for good reason. Compared to Kyle, Orland was just as strong and resilient. He’d survived the last attack and had protected a few townspeople from the slaughter.
How the mighty have fallen, Trenton thought. From town hero to herald of ruin.
Orland took a step forward into the skylight’s glow and revealed his full profile. Dark circles under his eyes and dry, cracked lips gave him a skeletal visage. Strange, pale blue patches dotted his chin down to his neck.
“You ready to play?”
“Bring it,” Trenton growled.
Small talk was a waste of energy anyway. Why bother berating your foe when you could just beat them?
There wasn’t much space in the kitchen, but that wouldn’t matter so much when his fist met Orland’s face. They tentatively approached each other. If his assessment was true, they were evenly matched—in human form. Arm length for arm length. A similar weight. And Orland didn’t have the combat training he possessed. But werewolf form was unpredictable. Bits of hairs sprouted on the back of Orland’s forearms. Trenton had to move fast. During the full moon, he’d seen Orland and the man was larger than he was by far.
Trenton brought up his hands, and Orland surged forward first to close the distance between them. Orland’s mouth formed a scowl as he swung the crowbar right.
Trenton caught the swing in mid-air, clasping his hands around Orland’s. To keep the man from swinging again, he shoved Orland backward and slammed him into the safe room’s steel doors. The impact reverberated up Trenton’s tired limbs, but he held on tight.
“Is that the best you got?” Orland hissed through clenched teeth. With a roar, Orland pushed back, sending them both crashing into the nearby fridge. A coffee can and box of Oreos toppled over the edge and littered the floor. With a kick from Orland’s foot, they careened to the other side of the kitchen. Trenton’s back hit the countertop and he grimaced from the hard blow to his kidneys.
There wasn’t time to clock out though. With a grunt, Trenton yanked the crowbar out Orland’s grasp and threw a right hook, ready to block when Orland swung. The man was crazy fast, hitting Trenton’s face and right shoulder. All he could do was hold his hands up and block.
Orland came at him again with a combination: a left hook, a vicious uppercut, and then a left jab. He swung hard again, but this time Trenton snared his elbow and wrist. With a sharp twist, he yanked the arm behind Orland’s back. The second-in-command cried out and bent forward. Seizing the opportunity, Trenton thrust his knee upward and slammed it into Orland’s face. Blood gushed from Orland’s nose, splattering across the floor like wet paint.
“You fucker!” the second-in-command spat.
Trenton snatched the microwave from the counter, hoisted it up and brought it down hard across Orland’s face. The man spun widely and fell to floor. His head whacked against the counter before hitting the floor with a heavy thud.
It took Trenton a few moments to slow down his beating heart and suck in precious breaths. His work wasn’t done yet. He kicked Orland, but the werewolf didn’t stir. If they were lucky, the blood witch outside would experience the same fate.
As Charly walked around the outside of the house, her mother’s warning rang through her head like an incessant alarm: Never waste what little you have.
She hadn’t much to waste anyway. What little time she’d used to rest wouldn’t be enough.
Her mother waited for her in the garden, a few wolves in front of her as guards. The last time Charly had seen her mother, she had been bound, her lip busted open from a fight she had when the enforcers attempted to restrain her. All of that had probably been an illusion for Charly’s benefit.
“Are you a fool?” her mother asked coolly.
Charly couldn’t hold back the growl that stirred in her throat. The wolf within her stirred under her skin. “Perhaps, but at least I’m not a liar who is willing to trick her own daughter.”
Her mother crossed her arms. “Ophelia and I know you all too well. You would’ve been too weak to do this task for the coven. For us.”
“But this does nothing,” Charly hissed. “The werewolves that Orland infects become savages. They can’t protect the world from the blood demons, and you’ve ruined your humanity!”
“Dear daughter, I’m not a human, therefore I don’t need to show humility. Even with my heightened powers, the outcome compared to the last time may look the same, but I control them. They can still help the coven. Unlike Amelia, I haven’t made mistakes. She fell in love with Liam and paid the price. Mine is a puppet and nothing more. Once I demonstrate how to control the werewolves to Ophelia, the crow coven can finally keep the blood demons locked away—”
“At a cost that includes innocent men, women, and children, right?”
“The casualties of war, Charlene. What the blood demon can do is far worse.�
�� Her mother huffed. “You really believe this piece of shit town is more important than protecting the world?”
“There’s always another way. I won’t let you do this.”
“Then the blood demons win. Or maybe you don’t care or you’re just as blind as Amelia. Do you love your wolf, too?”
Charly didn’t hesitate and a warm sensation filled her chest and gave her strength. “I do. I wouldn’t stand here if I didn’t care for him and the people in Hadley.” She growled again, sensing elongated incisors in her mouth.
The time for talking was over. The wolf within her took a confident step forward as she tested her grip on her blade, making sure her thumb was tucked in for a solid hold. It was time to hunt. And she had the advantage: she knew the most vulnerable places to cut.
Instead of rushing her mother, Charly used the weapon to cut her wrists. No more negotiations or chit-chat. She needed to end this. She ran to the cluster of werewolves off to the side. She waited for the pain—even welcomed it. If she was going down, she’d damn well do it standing on her feet fighting.
There’d be no blowtorches like in the police station. Five came straight on, while two approached from each side to make sure she didn’t slip past them. They were all shapes, colors, and sizes, but each of them had wild eyes and gaping mouths with bloodied teeth. All she could do this time was use the knife and her sheer will to survive. She was stronger this time. Faster.
The first wolf came at her with claws raised. She managed to dodge him and slit the side of his throat. Right at the jugular. A second attacker was far more nimble than the first. A woman, one who had to be no older than Charly, tackled her from the right. They rolled across the lawn with two more werewolves coming for her. Death’s perfume filled Charly nose, a harsh odor of putrid flesh and coppery blood. The woman grasped Charly by the shoulder and extended her teeth to bite her throat.
“Damn it!” Charly ignored the spark of shearing pain and plunged the blade into her attacker’s gut. The weapon slid into the flesh between the ribs without yielding. She stabbed again and again. The bleeding woman on top of her shrank back and then collapsed a few feet away.
Bitten by Treachery (Hadley Werewolves) Page 8