Pack

by Cassandra Chandler

  Chapter Thirteen

  How the hell was Tessa wishing that she was still with the werewolf? It had to be part of his dweller nature. Maybe being an alpha made him charismatic or something.

  He sure had Vaughn wrapped around his finger. Then again, Vaughn was an indoctrinated idiot.

  Well, not really an idiot.

  She thought back over the tech that he’d apparently designed. He was probably the smartest person she’d ever met. But he was fooling himself if he thought that Marcus wouldn’t turn on him—wouldn’t turn him eventually.

  There was no such thing as a good dweller.

  Now who sounds indoctrinated?

  Her mother was right, though. All the training she had put Tessa through after Edgar killed Brock and her dad… Everything her mom had said had been confirmed when Edgar caught up with them. After he had killed her mother and “adopted” Tessa as his own.

  She couldn’t call Edgar cruel or ruthless. He was beyond being sociopathic. He existed outside of human society, had no humanity. His sense of morals was completely alien.

  She shook her head as memories of her time with him threatened to flood her mind. If she thought about it, she’d break down.

  “You okay?” Porter asked.

  “No.”

  “You want to talk about it?”

  “No.”

  He laughed. “No wonder you and Marcus are getting along so well. You’re both people of few words.”

  “We fought together and almost died together. It creates an artificial sense of camaraderie.”

  Technically, she was the one who had almost died. Marcus could have run away whenever he wanted. Easily. But he had stayed to protect her. He had saved her life. Repeatedly. What did he want from her in return?

  “That’s possible,” Porter said. “We’ve never seen him so taken with someone before, though.”

  Again with the royal “we”. What was with these guys? Porter stopped in front of a door and put his hand on the doorknob. Before Tessa could ask about his weird grammar quirk, he paused and leaned toward her.

  “He didn’t hurt you, did he?”

  Something about his intensity made her pause before making a flippant remark. Maybe the Blades would take care of her werewolf problem after all. Porter seemed to be searching for a reason to take Marcus out, and she doubted Dexter would think twice about it. All she had to do was lie.

  “He didn’t hurt me at all,” she said. “He saved me. Twice. Three times if you count carrying me through those Redcaps that showed up at the end.”

  Redcaps that meant there were more queens lurking around, waiting to make more spider-headed zombies. Providence was in for more missing persons cases. More death and grief. More broken families.

  Porter smiled as if they weren’t having a conversation that might have resulted in him putting down a member of his own team. The coldness in his eyes made her shiver.

  “Good.” He opened the door and gestured for her to enter first.

  Marcus would have gone in before her and checked the room. She noticed how he scoped out the hallway and elevator before letting Vaughn or Tessa enter the spaces.

  It was just as well. She didn’t need a bodyguard. She sure as hell shouldn’t get used to having one. Or people watching her back. Or food. Or a bed.

  Holy shit.

  She hadn’t been wrong about her room being tricked out. The bed didn’t have a canopy or anything, but it was king-sized. There was a desk and chair along the wall on her left, a set of bookshelves on her right, and a freaking big-screen TV flush against the wall. Two doors led from the room. Bathroom and…closet, maybe?

  There was a small table near the door. She set her cereal box on it as she walked inside. Her feet sank into the soft, plush carpet. Feet that were spared from cuts because Marcus had carried her out of the junkyard.

  She needed to stop thinking about him. Especially in warm and fuzzy ways.

  “Nice place,” she said. “I still won’t be staying long.”

  “Give it a few days. You might change your mind.”

  If she stayed that long, a lot more than her mind would change.

  “I don’t like to stay put. Dwellers are nomadic. So am I.”

  “Not all dwellers move around,” Porter said. “Providence has a rather high population of stationary dwellers. They seem to be drawn here.”

  Drawn? Shit. She’d be leaving sooner than she thought.

  “Must be you Blades and your magnetic personalities.” She spoke without giving it much thought, too occupied with running through what she would need to steal from them as soon as possible.

  Clothing, food, weapons. A fucking car. Maybe she could manage one of the fancy vans in the garage, if she could work her way past whatever security system Vaughn had no doubt developed.

  She also needed time. Time to plan, rest up, maybe get a night—or day—of sleep when she wasn’t clutching a weapon and keeping one eye open. For all their weirdness, she felt like she could trust the Blades to keep her safe.

  “We’re pretty certain it’s the alien spacecraft buried beneath the ranch,” Porter said.

  “Wait… What?” Her mind was suddenly spinning in neutral, trying to process his words.

  His smile broadened. “The alien spacecraft. The one that brought dwellers to this planet. It crashed a few millennia ago. Right here.”

  “I…don’t know how to respond to that.”

  “The life forms aboard spread out into Earth’s ecosystem, finding ways to survive by attaching themselves to whatever species they were most compatible with. Hybridizing until they found viable forms. Humans built up stories around them, treating them as legend and myth—trying to make sense of things that are literally alien to them.”

  Tessa’s forehead started to cramp from how high her eyebrows were arching. Her mouth hung open.

  She knew dwellers were aliens, but had always been too concerned with how to get rid of them to give much thought to how they arrived. Edgar had dropped hints, but she deliberately shut him down to keep him from sharing the “legacy” that she was going to become part of. Now, she kind of wished she’d listened to his side of the dwellers’ origin story.

  “How did you find the ship?” she said.

  “Over time, it was buried, but Vaughn’s family discovered it when they settled here. They kept it hidden for generations. They had to wait until human technology advanced enough to take advantage of it. Vaughn’s father started harvesting the ship for parts to found his tech company. Now that his father has passed, Vaughn keeps the company going, but uses the tech he pulls out to help us in our mission.”

  “That’s…a lot.”

  “Give it some time to sink in. And while you do, there’s one more thing we’d like you to think about.”

  What the hell could he follow with after that?

  “From what we’ve seen, you’d make a great Blade,” Porter said.

  Oh. Right.

  Here it came. The ultimate temptation.

  “We’d like you to join us,” he said. “Train as a Blade. Maybe settle here in Providence. We understand if you need to think about it.”

  “What I need is a shower and about five hours of uninterrupted sleep to process all of this.”

  “By all means.” He walked to one of the doors and opened it, then stepped aside so she could see what was within.

  Black clothing hung neatly from hangars. More was stacked on shelves, along with several sets of boots. Better yet, there were weapons hanging on the walls. Axes, swords, even a mace.

  “Oh, you Blades do know how to tempt a hunter.” She ran her fingers along the hilt of an axe. “Any of these have fancy settings like Vaughn’s cutlery?”

  “We keep the advanced weaponry in the sublevels. You’ll need training on them before you can use them.”

  “Training.”

  She looked at the clothing again. Everything was smaller than she expected. The T-shirts, pants, boots—all were her size. Vaugh
n wasn’t as huge as Marcus, but he was big enough that she’d be able to tell if these were his spares.

  “How’d you have clothing in my size on hand?”

  “We have a variety of Blades in our employ. We keep all bases stocked with supplies for everyone, just in case we have to do some shuffling.”

  Shuffling… If she didn’t have to stay in one place, maybe she could become a Blade.

  She shook the thought from her mind immediately.

  He selected an outfit for her, going so far as to open a drawer she hadn’t noticed and pulling out a sports bra and pair of boy briefs. He handed her the pile, then pointed toward the other door.

  “Take that shower and get some sleep,” he said. “We’re heading back to the junkyard tonight. If, after that, you feel like we don’t have anything to offer you… Well, no hard feelings. We’ll replace what you lost—with upgrades—and send you on your way.”

  “Seriously?” She shook her head. “There has to be a catch.”

  “If it seems too good to be true, then let us add this. We’re making this generous offer because we’re that confident we can convince you to stay.”

  “That’s a little creepy. And seriously, what is with the ‘us’ and ‘we’?”

  His smile broadened. “You’ll get used to it.”

  She wasn’t sure if he was referring to their general creepiness or the way they talked. She actually stammered a bit, trying to formulate a response. She couldn’t think of any. Instead, she said, “Thanks for setting me up. You can go now.”

  “That’s not happening.” He walked to the desk and sat in the chair next to it.

  “What?”

  “You’ve been through a lot. It’s our job to keep you safe.”

  “Can’t you do that from outside?”

  “Marcus has arrived and is standing in the hall currently.”

  “How do you know that?”

  Porter interlaced his fingers over his chest and leaned back. “If you want a five hour nap, you’d better get on that shower.”

  He obviously wasn’t going to budge and there was nothing lascivious in his gaze. She headed for the bathroom, pretending it didn’t bother her that he’d be waiting for her when she was done—telling herself it was better that Porter was watching over her than Marcus.

  At least I know how to lie to myself.

  Of all the crazy things that had happened since she arrived in Providence, realizing that she felt safer with a werewolf than a human was about the strangest. But it was true.

  She pulled off her clothes and hopped under the hot water. Absolute bliss. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d had a real shower. There was soap, shampoo, and even conditioner.

  She hurried through cleaning herself, not wanting to get used to it. Leaving was already going to be harder than it should be. She didn’t want anything else tying her to this place—these people.

  Still, as her hands drifted over her body, she remembered Marcus’s touch. The heat of him, his weight on top of her, the passion in his kiss.

  The way he had stopped her from ripping his clothes off and having sex. Because he knew she wouldn’t want to have sex with a werewolf.

  Not just any werewolf, anyway.

  Her mother would disown her if she could hear Tessa’s thoughts.

  “Dwellers may look human, but they aren’t. The minute you forget that, you’re dead. Just like your father.”

  Her mom had never mentioned Brock. She refused to talk about him—ever. Tessa figured it was just too painful. Knowing how much she hurt… Yeah, that was probably it.

  But not talking about him made Tessa miss Brock more. Especially now, after meeting Dexter and Porter. They reminded her so much of Brock. How could they all three be so similar?

  There couldn’t be a connection. Not unless Brock had been one of a set of triplets separated at birth.

  She knew that Brock was adopted. His dark eyes were a genetic impossibility with their parents’ paler color. Brock had called them out on the matter in High School, and her parents had called the family together to explain.

  Mom and Dad said they knew Brock’s parents and were there when he was born. His biological mother had died in childbirth, and they’d decided to take Brock in and raise him as their own. It would have been a huge oversight to not mention that he’d been one of a set of triplets.

  For a moment—only a moment—Tessa let herself wonder if it was possible.

  Her parents would have told her, though. Brock would have told her—if he’d known.

  Between the twins’ eerie similarities to her brother, Vaughn’s disarming personality, and Marcus’s…being Marcus, this place felt weirdly like home. How could that happen in a matter of hours?

  They would go from laughing to being at each other’s throats and back again in moments. It felt like her family before Edgar. Her real family. Her human family.

  Brock had teased her all the time. They would laugh and fight and their dad would come in and mediate and get them to make up. Dad would always say that nothing was more important than family. She believed him.

  It made it hurt even worse when they were all taken away.

  She wished she could kill Edgar, but he was too powerful. It would be one thing if his physiology was the same as the comparatively simple creatures his dwellers transformed humans into. But Edgar… He was something much more complicated. And some day, she would be, too.

  She checked her wristband again. It was waterproof, and she’d been careful when cleaning the skin around it. She hadn’t noticed any suspicious lumps on her body. Hadn’t felt them chewing away at any part of her but her wrist.

  When Marcus was eating his breakfast, they had stirred. It had taken all of her willpower to act like nothing was wrong.

  Edgar’s creations needed to eat meat to survive. Dead meat was their favorite, which made them not as bad as many of the other dwellers she’d encountered.

  Werewolves, for instance. They liked their meat to run and scream.

  So did Edgar. So would she.

  Her stomach twisted. She covered her mouth to keep her breakfast down.

  Marcus was so different from the werewolves she’d met. It was hard to believe he was the same type of dweller.

  A crazy idea hit her. Maybe he wasn’t.

  The Blades were ignorant about dwellers. They could be wrong about what Marcus was. There were other dwellers who had golden eyes. She knew of a few rare ones.

  The chupacabra, for instance. They were only dangerous to goats and other livestock. They didn’t attack humans unless the human attacked them—which was a very bad idea. The hunter who’d lectured her mother and Tessa about them had been missing several body parts.

  Chupacabra looked a lot like werewolves. Except for the wings… But maybe Marcus was some sort of mutant offshoot that didn’t have any. It seemed a lot more believable than an alpha werewolf taking orders from a bunch of humans and being a decent guy.

  She dried off and dressed quickly, then grabbed the stingray out of her other pants.

  They were going to fight together that night. She would keep an eye on Marcus and look for signs that the Blades were wrong about the type of dweller infecting him. But first, she needed some rest.

  Porter was still sitting in the chair by the desk when she exited the bathroom. He had closed the curtains at some point, blocking out what dim light the storm wasn’t stifling.

  “Did you have a nice shower?”

  “Yeah, thanks.” She crossed to the closet and opened the doors.

  One of the knives had caught her eye earlier. It was about as long as her forearm, had a sensible sheath, and was pretty flat. She could easily sleep with it under her pillow.

  The stingray was… Well, it was awesome. But she didn’t think it was a good idea to use it as her go-to weapon when sleeping in a strange place for the first time.

  She grabbed the knife, then walked to the bed and pulled down the covers. “Are you really going to sit
there and watch me sleep?”

  “I sure am.”

  “Wait a minute. ‘I’?”

  He smiled again. “Go to sleep.”

  There was something different about his smile. It actually reached his eyes this time. Maybe he and Dexter just put on that hardcore façade to keep their crew in check and Porter was feeling more personable with it being just the two of them. It could also be a recruiting tactic. If so, it was kind of working.

  Weird.

  She couldn’t stay, though. The dwellers in her arm were like a beacon for Edgar. He was always only a few days behind her. Eventually, he would catch up. She didn’t know if she could convince the Blades to “shuffle” her to other sites that quickly. Especially if they wanted to train her in their protocols.

  Facing Edgar with the Blades of Janus backing her up would be better than dealing with him on her own. Except it wouldn’t be her and the Blades.

  Edgar would gain more control over the dwellers in her arm as he drew near. He could activate them fully—order them to spread through Tessa’s body, despite her best efforts to keep them dormant. He would take her over and the Blades would have two Hive beings to deal with.

  She had to face the hard truth. The Blades couldn’t save her. She was already infected. Already compromised.

  The knife in her hand was heavy. She was sure its edge would be razor sharp. Vaughn might have even tweaked it, like his kitchen knife.

  It might not take much force at all to get rid of her problem permanently.

  Lop off her dominant arm just below the elbow and all her dweller problems went away. Porter was even a doctor. He could keep her from bleeding out. She wouldn’t have a better opportunity to be free.

  She wouldn’t be as effective as a hunter—or a Blade—but maybe Vaughn could make her a cybernetic arm or something. It wouldn’t be a death sentence. She wouldn’t be alone.

  What the hell was wrong with her? As far as morbid fantasies went, this one was pretty messed up.

  She needed to sleep. Her mind was going to weird places. She couldn’t remember the last good night’s sleep she’d had.

  And there Porter sat next to her bed, that half-smug, half-affectionate smile on his face that made her want to cry and scream and hug him.