Redemptive Blood

by Tamara Rose Blodgett

  “We need to discuss some things.”

  Laz swings backward, gifting Neil with an expression filled with warning. Steam erupts from his mouth, nose, and ears.

  “Laz,” Tessa says.

  He grabs her hand and hauls her backward, pushing her safely behind the protection of his body.

  Drek enters, followed by Bowen—if Tessa remembers the name of his right-hand wolf correctly.

  Bowen moves through the threshold, closing the door in Neil's face, Tessa's happy to note.

  Laz notices, giving a slight smile to the other male.

  “Let's sit down.”

  Tessa's nerves flare. Drek had promised they could go, that he was working on a solution. Sitting down sounds like delay to her.

  Being sexually frustrated while scared out of her wits isn't a good frame of mind to be in, either. But she follows Laz, plopping down on a sectional couch in the center of the room.

  “Where are we?” The idea suddenly occurs to Tessa that they've been in this cabin from the beginning.

  “It is a courtship cabin.”

  Tessa blanches. “This is where Tahlia was supposed to stay?”

  Drek gives a curt nod of confirmation.

  “Where is Tahlia?” Tessa's brows pull together. If it's possible for a Were to pale, Drek's doing a stand-up job.

  “That is what I have come with. In part,” Drek admits.

  Tessa wipes suddenly damp palms on her black form-fitting pants. “Huh. You're making me nervous, Drek.”

  “Tahlia is my chosen, my intended.”

  Tessa doesn't tell him there was hardly anything about the way Tahlia was treated that would have allowed her to feel that way.

  She can't enlighten him now. Tahlia's gone, Tessa can't help her, and she especially can't do squat holed up with the Hoh pack.

  “Okay?” Tessa asks, and Laz looks at her. I guess I'm rude. “I mean, I feel bad for Tahlia, too. I want her safe, but our situation sucks. Laz and I want to go.”

  “I want you to go, too. Believe me.” Drek gives them hard eyes. “But I must do something before you go, or I cannot take after Tahlia.”

  Laz tenses.

  This is so not good. “What?” Tessa asks, but the word drops out of her mouth as a thread of her normal voice.

  “Laz must partake in blood sacrifice.”

  Tessa jumps to her feet, upending the side table. Bowen reactively reaches for her and Laz slaps his chest, sending Bowen flying six feet backward. He lands on his ass, sliding across the polished floor toward the door.

  “No—you took a blood oath!” Tessa screams.

  Bowen flips over to his hands and knees, raises his chin, and sights Laz.

  He goes wolfen.

  Fuck. Tessa quarter-changes without a thought.

  “Stop this,” Drek commands.

  “Lycan power does not move me.” Laz inserts his body protectively in front of Tessa, and she lays her head between his shoulder blades, careful not to constrain him with further touching.

  “They mean to drain you of all your blood, Laz. Short of death, but it's a barbaric torture.”

  “I am demonic.”

  Her voice shakes, but she forces the reply from between her lips. “And they are Lanarre. They'll kill you.”

  Bowen comes at Laz, and Drek checks him with a swift clothesline to the torso. His teeth snap, and spittle flies from his gnashing and growling, but Laz remains unmoved.

  “Why does Laz receive our worst punishment?” Tessa pleads. “He is not a criminal—he saved you.”

  Bowen's face shortens, his teeth receding until every bit of him is back to his human form. The display of control is impressive, and Tessa wonders briefly if he has royal blood, as well.

  Still, his eyes remain silver as they narrow to razors at Laz. “That's quite a punch, demonic.”

  Laz nods. “We are strong. But I am stronger still, when defending my Redemptive.”

  The Lanarre just stare at him like he grew a second head.

  “Laz,” Tessa begins as gently as possible, “they don't care about me being your Redemptive. The Hoh pack want you to hurt for what happened. Someone has to be held accountable, and because you're demonic...” Tessa bites her lip, her vision blurring with unshed tears.

  “If I don't punish him, it will look as though any outsider could gain entry, kill our people, and get off without a consequence. That kind of action, or inaction, would have me defending my throne to all comers. He will not be killed, obviously. I have sworn a blood oath.”

  No one would want the Moon herself to call blood debt.

  Tessa doesn't realize she'd closed her eyes. She opens them, lasering a stare of stark disdain on Drek. “So let me get this straight. The Blood Sacrifice is because you're worried about your power base getting fucked?” With all her restraint, she barely resists the urge to pull her hair out.

  Drek rubs a hand over his face. “Not exactly. It's about me not wanting to hunt down Tahlia and come back to...” He jerks his head toward the closed door.

  “Oh.” Anarchy. Her eyes shift to the door where Neil “stands guard” just outside. She shifts her weight, looking between Drek and Bowen.

  Drek opens his palms in supplication. “I must do this to save the pack, Tessa. In the end, it is not about me, but about all of us.”

  “Even the bitch, Tanya?” Tessa knows she's baiting Drek, but can't seem to help herself.

  And, Tessa's still on Team Tahlia.

  Drek's exhale is weary. “Even her.”

  “Okay. Say Laz agrees to let every Lanarre Were take a bite out of him? What happens next?” Tears boil over, hot lines of wet anger streaming down her face.

  Tessa doesn't know how Laz senses her despair, but he pulls her from behind himself and cups her head, sucking her against his body.

  Some horrible, tight knot hitches in her throat, then she's sobbing. Helpless wracking shakes her, and Tessa clutches Laz around his hard flanks. “I don't want you hurt. I've just found you,” she chokes out.

  “I will prevail, my Redemptive.”

  She tips her head back, searching eyes gone to the color of azure seas. “I don't want you to be hurt, Laz—I love you.”

  She covers her mouth with the admission, and ignoring Bowen and Drek, he pulls her hand away, moving his fingertips to each side of her face. “I am demonic. It takes much to truly harm us.”

  She searches his eyes like an archeologist at the perfect dig and manages to gasp, “Don't you die.”

  Laz shakes his head, thumbing away her remaining tears.

  But Tessa's stomach drops at the fleeting expression that's washing across his eyes.

  Uncertainty.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Jenni

  “Now what?” Devin asks in a subdued voice.

  Jenni has the windshield wipers on max. Water droplets fling away in a torrent as the skinny blades flip back and forth over the slick glass.

  She flicks her eyes at Devin then back to the road. Devin is slouched low in the seat, while Ella’s gentle snoring lulls them both into semi-dazed, surreal complacency.

  But Jenni knows she doesn't have the luxury of succumbing to that. Something deep inside tells her she doesn't have much time.

  What she's become will want to get out. To be.

  A single tear slips up and over the bottom of her eyelid, and she battens down the emotional hatches. Jenni doesn't have time for the pity party she wants to throw for herself.

  Her eyes shift to the rearview mirror. In the backseat, a tiny cherub face sleeps. Dusty rose colors her chubby cheeks, and Ella’s little hands are curled around Tiki, the Cabbage Patch doll.

  “I guess we just get some distance.”

  “Then what?” Devin asks.

  “I don't know,” Jenni admits. “But the little I do know tells me that Bray's going to be a huge problem.”

  Jenni can sense Devin's emotions. It might be a scenting thing—she just doesn't know.

  Dammit, Adi.


  She shouldn't curse the girl that gave her a second chance, but Jenni doesn't know what the fuck she's doing. Yesterday, Jenni was saving lives while her own ebbed away.

  Today she's running for her life. Along with a couple she’s towed along.

  “I have enough money,” she says, swinging her gaze to Devin.

  Devin's bloodshot eyes look back at her without an ounce of excitement. “Okay.”

  “Did Bray see Ella?”

  “I don't think so.”

  Jenni bites her lip, using the right lane, she keeps the speedometer at a steady sixty miles per hour. That's all she needs: a cop to notice her and pull them over.

  Devin turns toward her, the faux-leather upholstery crinkling with the motion. “What are you thinking?”

  Jenni decides to tell Devin her speculations, even though they're sort of awful. “I can smell everything now.” She looks at Devin, and their eyes lock. Then driving forces her to face the road again. “I'm betting that means Bray the Bully can, too.”

  Devin doesn't laugh. “Does that mean he smelled Ella—through the closed car?” A note of hysteria creeps into the edges of her voice. “I don't know about that. Say he could smell her—so what?”

  Jenni really doesn't want to tell her this next part but forces herself to. “I knew that you and Ella were related.”

  Devin's eyes widen. “How?”

  Jenni grips the steering wheel harder. “Because there's an undertone.” Her exhale is a frustrated huff. “Like a familial connection for lack of a better term. And when I met Bray this second time, I knew he was the dad.”

  “Okay,” Devin begins slowly, “say he could smell her. Then he'd know he's a dad?” Disbelief is thick in her voice.

  “Yeah. Ella's dad.”

  “I have a daddy?”

  Jenni's shoulders slump.

  Devin turns around, straddling the section separating the driver's and passenger's sides. “Yes, baby. You couldn't be here without a mama and a daddy.”

  “I wanna see ʼim.” She rubs her eyes with fists that still have the baby she used to be at the edges.

  “Hands outta your eyes, Boo.”

  Big sigh.

  Jenni smiles. Despite the stressful circumstances, there's something about a child that makes her feel lighter. Of course, that thought brings the next one: she's responsible for Devin and Ella. There's no amount of justification that takes that feeling from her shoulders.

  “So what does that mean—for us?” Devin asks, voice quivering.

  “It means we ditch this car and find a place that makes it tough for Bray to get us—you.”

  “But why not be with Daddy?” Ella asks in a tiny voice.

  “Because he's a bad man,” Devin replies loudly. And Jenni knows fear is the strength behind the statement. Fear for her child.

  Ella's brown eyes meet Jenni's in the rearview. “Is my daddy a bad man, Jenni?”

  Tough truths today. “Yes, he was the man who chased me, remember?”

  “When we got your stuff at the canda?”

  “Condo, baby.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Jenni keeps her eyes fixed on the road. “Yes, that was him.”

  “Why?”

  Devin turns, facing Jenni, and laughs. “It's not the terrible twos, by the way. Somebody got that wrong. Dead wrong.”

  She laughs. “I think there's probably plenty of challenging ages for kids.” Her smile fades. Jenni can't have kids. All that radiation killed her female machinery. Oh well, there's no guy. And she's going to be howling at a moon shortly anyway.

  God.

  “You look sad, Jen-Jen.”

  “I am,” she says. And as if admitting the emotion makes it worse, the tears begin to flow.

  Damn, damn, damn.

  A sign off the highway says Gig Harbor in reflective white font with a green background.

  Jenni's got to rest. They've been driving for a couple of hours, and she's exhausted. She throws on the blinker and guides the car to an on ramp. The gentle incline moves to an overpass, and she catches sight of a Little Oscar’s pizza place.

  “Hot and fast,” it says.

  Good enough for me.

  *

  “I know this is super tacky, but can I just say food tastes better when you don't pay for it?” Devin groans, pulling a piece of cheese that's stretched between the thick square of pizza and tipping her head back to catch the entire steaming wad on her tongue.

  Jenni doesn't answer for a second because she'd too busy licking grease off her fingers then hunting around for the napkins.

  Devin pops the glove box, and about a hundred bounce out in a flutter of white paper.

  “Yummy!” Ella says, as slurping pipes through from the back seat. “Mama gives me pop.”

  “Don't get used to it, kiddo,” Devin says from the front, mumbling around a mouthful of food. She glances at Jenni's empty box.

  Yeah, that's right.

  Jenni consumed the entire pizza. Of course, she ordered four, plus bread sticks with plenty of that marinara sauce.

  She digs into the second box.

  “Leave some for the pigs,” Devin exclaims with a laugh.

  Jenni ignores her, swigging icy Coke down the hatch and attacking her pizza again. She can't remember needing food this badly since—hell—her growth spurt at twelve years old.

  Her parents said she was a five-feet-tall locust. Jenni smiles around a folded half slice crammed into her mouth.

  “Oh, my God—are you okay?” Devin sounds worried.

  She turns. “Yeah.” Jenni's cheeks are distended, but she manages to belt out the answer, swallow the entire load down, and take another guzzle of pop.

  Ella slings her arms over the seat between them. “Mama called you a hog.” She makes the pig sound. Oink-oink.

  Out of the mouths of babes.

  Unable to refute the observation, Jenni laughs. “Yes, I guess I am.” She picks up another piece, making short work of box number two.

  “You're not seriously gonna have another slice, Jenni.”

  “Jen-Jen needs to eat a lot a food. Because she's a woof, too.” Ella smiles.

  Jenni smiles back. It's official—she loves Ella. Devin's not too bad, either.

  Now, if they can just elude Bray.

  *

  “That was delicious,” Jenni says, tapping her belly. She's not hungry anymore, but she can't say she's full exactly.

  A burp erupts. One of the kind boys did in middle school.

  Oops.

  “Gross, Jen-Jen!”

  Yes, gross. A silly grin spreads over her face. “Excuse me,” she says demurely, giving a sheepish dip of her chin.

  Devin can't stop grinning, either. “I don't think I've ever seen anyone consume almost three pizzas at one time. It's a thing.”

  Jenni meets Devin's eyes. “Yeah,” she replies softly, thinking back to all the weight she lost during chemo. Jenni swears the treatment made her sicker than the cancer. Doesn't seem possible.

  But it was the reality.

  Jenni looks around at people going in and out of the strip mall where the Little Caesar’s pizza dive is at the corner.

  The neon sign still says open, but it's getting later, and even Ella, who is draped over the middle, swings her little arms as her eyes droop.

  “Ready to find a place to camp out?”

  Ella sits up straight. “Yes, yes!” she bounces, reenergized.

  Jenni turns the engine over and backs out of the parking space.

  “Toss these empty boxes, Devin.” She pulls up at a dumpster partially hidden by a copse of trees. Devin opens the door and slides out then tosses the empty boxes inside.

  “That's a lot of pizza,” Ella says.

  “I'm a hungry wolf.”

  Ella gives her a speculative glance. “When do you make a furry?”

  Too soon. Out loud, Jenni admits, “Not sure but if all those stories are true, probably at the full moon.”

  Ella l
ooks up at the sky, twilight a promise. “Don't see any moon.”

  “Clouds, rain, and all that stuff sometimes hide the moon.”

  Jenni can feel the moon like a dull pulse at the back of her head. Thump, thump, thump.

  Devin hops back in, shuts the door, and hits the lock with a decisive smack of the metal knob.

  “That gonna matter, if the moon's hiding?” Ella asks.

  “What?” Devin asks, looking between the two of them.

  “No,” Jenni says, her stomach tightening, “I don't think it will matter if the moon is hiding or not.”

  Jenni thinks the moon being full is probably all it will take. She has to take measures. Measures to protect these innocent girls.

  “Let's get,” Jenni says. Spying a sign for gas, she takes a right-hand turn, heading toward a promised convenience store.

  “Arletta 3 miles,” the sign says.

  Strange name.

  *

  A sign swings in the breeze, night nipping at the heels of day.

  It once said Arletta, but one of the letters has faded so badly, it's fancy guesswork to make it out.

  Jenni steps out of the car and stretches until all the bones of her spine pop. Landing on her heels, she asks Devin to gas up and walks toward the convenience store door.

  It's a squat building, probably dating to the 1950s. It's tired, but as the bell tinkles while she struggles through a glass swinging door that sticks, a middle-aged gal sits up straighter and has a ready smile. Becky, her nametag reads. Slim, with weathered dark-blond hair, she's smoking a cigarette. To Jenni's senses, the acrid vapor is an insult, and she gives a thin smile. It's about all she has in her at the moment.

  “What can I do for ya?”

  “Just gassing up,” Jenni flicks a thumb behind her, vaguely indicating her car and hidden passengers.

  “Right,” she goes back to working on a crossword. Jenni takes in the obvious personal touches, such as a glass lamp filled with seashells.

  Her gaze roams the indistinct creams, whites, and ivories of found beach treasures, and an instant idea forms. “Pretty shells.”

  Becky looks up, and Jenni sees her eyes are her best feature, a pure, rich hazel green. Big flakes of brown are sprinkled throughout rich green irises. Reminds her a little of Adi.