Black Werewolves: Books 1–4

by Gaja J. Kos

  The thought made her want to snarl almost as much as Rose’s folder did.

  Sounds drifted into the room from the kitchen, a clash of dishes and the thunk of the knife hitting the wood as Jürgen prepared a late-night snack for himself. Katja had told him to go to bed, but the were had refused to leave her alone, even if there was nothing he could truly do as she gathered all the information and began outlining the basics of her strategy.

  Her knee dug deeper into Katja’s cheek, her skin reddening.

  When they had first begun hunting down the rogue vamps, she felt a slight discomfort at condemning them to death if they failed to surrender. Some of them hadn’t yet crossed the line; their only felony was conspiracy to murder and reluctance to being interrogated. Enough in the eyes of the pack, but perhaps not enough to put her at ease.

  Over time, she had let her reservations go. Each run-in she had with the rogues aided in convincing her the vampires truly were willing to lay down their lives for the greater cause of eliminating Rose’s presence in the world. If they hadn’t killed already, they would somewhere along the road.

  But reading through the notes the werewolf had given her, Katja almost resented herself for harboring any kind of doubt at all.

  It was more than probable that the Upirs had preyed on the fear and hatred Rose’s new status had stirred within the vamps, but it had been the latter that had accepted the two-souled creatures’ leadership without hesitation.

  Katja couldn’t understand it, not with everything the Upirs had done in the past. Not when the ancient beings saw her whole species as lesser, as scapegoats for crimes committed out of boredom.

  And now they were using the vampires as tools. But those tools had chosen their role of their own free will.

  Fangs out, she swore.

  The numbers and footnotes staring at her from the scattered sheets of paper twisted her stomach in a knot. They weren’t dealing with protests or isolated hate crimes. Every single member of the opposing party was organized, integrated deeply in the setup the Upirs had devised. She hadn’t connected all the dots yet, but something was painfully clear…

  It was premeditated. All of it. And the past events were only the beginning stages.

  Self-defense and retaliation would never be enough to fend them off. Even taking down the lairs she had discovered was nothing but a minor dent in their foul, rotten armor. The warehouse had perhaps stung, but even that had been merely one of the many heads they had yet to cut off, unless they could get to the core first.

  If it wasn’t too late already.

  Jürgen had been more right than he knew when he had shared the Gamayun’s prophecy and voiced his fears that the toxin she had spoken of wasn’t simply the one dripping from the wolf-man’s claws, but this whole bloody line of events.

  If the vamps’ minds were corrupted by the idea of supremacy, she doubted even taking out the Upirs would succeed in abruptly stopping what had already been set in motion.

  Katja leaned back, curling both her legs close to her body. They needed to take this one infuriating step at a time.

  She still had contacts in what the pack had called the gray zone—vampires that were fearful of Rose’s reign, yet not fearful enough to lash out at her. Katja hadn’t been certain of just how many of her kin were walking that line, so she had taken additional precautions while approaching them during the past few months. Gazing at the papers now, she was glad she hadn’t been more forceful.

  The links Rose had drawn between the facts Ileana had told her and those she had obtained from Serafina made sense. Coincidences began losing their innocence when looked at from the right angle. And they put a whole lot of vampires Katja believed to be in the gray zone straight over the edge into bloody red.

  She rubbed her palms across her face, groaning silently.

  Vamps and Upirs. Working as one, yet presenting two separate battle fronts. Couldn’t things be just a little easier for once?

  “That bad, Schatzi?” Jürgen’s voice came from the kitchen, followed by the werewolf himself, a plate filled with three sandwiches gripped in his hands.

  “Worse,” she replied with a soft smile. She scooted over, making room for the werewolf to sprawl himself down next to her.

  Biting into the first of the sandwiches, Jürgen peered towards the table. His eyes scanned Rose’s handwriting spread across the many pages. “I can see now why she wanted the whole pack to assist you in this…”

  Katja bit her lip. She didn’t doubt that was part of the plan—there was no way she could do this alone—yet she wasn’t convinced there wasn’t something else lurking behind it, either. Still, she remained quiet, deciding this wasn’t a battle she had to fight. Rose knew what she was doing, and with the god back in her life, she would be well protected in whatever her mission was.

  The way Veles still looked at the werewolf hadn’t escaped Katja’s notice, either. It was something she had discovered in herself, as well—a kind of undying love that couldn’t be contained even by the grimmest of circumstances. Though it was evident the pair’s reunion was in no way intimate… At least not actively.

  A light touch of strong, masculine fingers brushed against her cheek, and Katja closed her eyes, submerging herself in the moment. This was the love she had sensed, the love she, herself, knew. The caresses continued, Jürgen’s fingers traveling down her neck and circling the nook of her shoulder. She smiled, and when she opened her eyes once again, the werewolf was smiling back.

  A devious glimmer danced in his gaze before he pressed a kiss just below Katja’s ear and murmured, “We get married. And we get all these fuckers”—his nose brushed against her skin—“as our own wedding gift to each other.”

  She snickered, her whole body curling closer to Jürgen’s, no dread or discomfort lingering in the pit of her stomach any longer. “When?”

  The silence that stretched between them was electric, sizzling.

  “How about we take some time off tomorrow,” the were rumbled into her neck, “and choose the earliest date?”

  “Deal.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yes,” she breathed, shifting her body to meet Jürgen’s lips.

  The were accepted the kiss eagerly, with a hunger she knew would keep her up until morning. She chuckled, tearing herself away from his mouth even when she wanted nothing more but to let those lips roam her body, sate her every need and leave her screaming for more at the same time.

  “Let me just get this done—she tilted her head towards the coffee table—“and we’ll discuss the details in bed.”

  Jürgen picked up his plate and stalked towards the bedroom. He half turned when he reached the door, a wicked expression resting on his face, one eyebrow arched high. “I look forward to our discussion.”

  Grinning, she returned to the files, the door behind Jürgen closing shut.

  Just one more run-through and she could join the werewolf in bed. Just a few more minutes of this nightmare and she would be free to return to the reality that made every dream look pale in comparison.

  She picked up the five-pages-long list of almost confirmed names of those who had joined sides with the Upirs and skimmed through it again. She wanted to memorize as many as she could to prevent any mishaps while she scouted for information. Groggily, her mind processed the names she knew, storing them so they would set in her memory permanently overnight—in those few hours of sleep she intended to catch.

  She reached Rose’s footnotes where a few additional individuals were placed, based on the intensity of their relationship with those on the main list. There wasn’t enough evidence to put them in the primary group, but they were sufficiently shady to warrant supervision.

  Rose had done her job well. Even a single vampire left unchecked was a wild card they simply couldn’t afford. Thoroughness was everything.

  Katja’s gaze dropped to the third name written down, three question marks drawn next to it.

  Silently, she cursed and reached for he
r phone. She should have known.

  “Let me drive,” Tim offered, casually eying the light tremors that riddled Evelin’s fingers as they gripped the steering wheel.

  She had tried to conceal them at first, but all her attempts had fallen short. The countryside dashed past them, the faintest outlines of trees visible underneath the moonlight.

  Evelin wished she could have waited until morning, that she could have just one more night with her family. But in a time when every small advantage mattered, she didn’t dare let the cover of darkness slip between her fingers.

  “I’ll be fine,” she said, but the words lacked any true confidence.

  Keeping her eyes plastered to the short stretch of road the headlights illuminated, she listened to the deep breaths rising in her chest. In the back, Rafael slept, a duffle bag resting on the seat next to him.

  She knew she had to drive; otherwise, what little strength was holding her together would disappear, and she’d break down.

  Bringing Mark the news was hard enough, even if the version he had gotten was redacted. But the decision to send the cub away was crushing. It went against her instincts, against the deafening roar that screamed inside her, yelling how no one could protect Rafael the way she could.

  She held on to the voice of reason that dangled across her mind like a rope over a maddening plunge.

  She couldn’t protect him.

  She was a Black were, a true member of The Dark Ones, pack mate and friend to a woman who had managed to set the whole world on fire with her impossible existence. Yet having Rafael by her side would only increase the number of his enemies, not dilute it.

  She had to admit defeat. She wasn’t the solution to keeping her cub safe, and she had told Mark as much. The company they kept, who they were themselves, was too dangerous for their child.

  But every second spent in the car tightened the knot that had strung itself together in the very pit of her stomach.

  It didn’t matter that Rafael would be no more than a forty minute drive away. She still felt like she had done the one thing she had sworn would never happen. She had failed him.

  “You’re not failing him,” the werewolf sitting next to her said as those final thoughts seeped through the bond.

  “Sorry.” She winced, grazing Tim from the corner of her eye. “I didn’t mean to broadcast that.”

  A soft laugh. Compassionate. “Don’t apologize. The twins would probably be neck deep in beer right now if they were in your situation, Rose halfway through her third pack of cigarettes, and Zarja on the eighth man she’d beaten up. But you… You’re still holding it together, Evelin. How can you be failing him when you’re doing all that’s in your power to keep him alive?”

  Hot tears prickled at the back of her eyes, but she held them back. Just like she had been doing from the moment she walked away from the Koldun.

  Driving had kept her sane then, and it would keep her so now. She wanted nothing more than to submerge herself fully in the simple, small task, but that damned rich voice continued to penetrate her mind.

  Should they learn of him, the Keepers will try to take your child.

  The words haunted her, causing those tremors to spread down her limbs until she was helpless to control them.

  Because Sander was right.

  There had been enough changes in the structure of the world, and Rafael could just be the drop that tipped everything over.

  Or at least the drop that was easy and fast to eliminate, if for nothing else than to regain some sense of control.

  The truth of it sickened her. The cub couldn’t stay in her presence; it wasn’t safe for anybody to be around her. Even someone without a target on their back could turn into one in a blink of an eye if she pissed off the wrong people. And that was precisely what she felt like she had been doing ever since she had walked into that White lair deep within the Czech woods.

  Tim’s offer, once she had confided in him before the darkness drove her mad, came as a blessing from the gods. A chance for Rafael to be under the guardianship of someone who understood the risk and still wanted to help.

  Yet she couldn’t shake the feeling of wrongness, of simply not doing enough, even as that rational part of her mind kept shouting that the absolute most she could give the child was distance.

  The sensation was made worse by the fact that she was dragging someone else into peril.

  Tim had assured her time and time again that Pia never said anything she didn’t mean, let alone gave a promise without giving it ample thought beforehand. Questioning her would only end with Tim’s supply of strudel being cut off—as the elder were had kindly warned.

  Remembering the stern face when Tim had passed on the message, the not so subtle threat that Evelin was in for a massive snarling if she dared to jeopardize the strudel deal, eased some of the tension. But she wasn’t completely swayed.

  Beside her, Tim glanced back at the cub, the lines of his features soft as he took in the drowsy, adorable snow-white face of the once again wolf-child. “Pia will take good care of him,” he whispered, turning back and nestling into his seat. “And she’s one hell of a fighter.”

  At that, Evelin laughed. A true, sincere laugh that caused those pestering tears to roll freely down her cheeks at long last.

  Chapter 26

  Being around Veles was…odd, for lack of a better word. The rumbling cacophony of sensations Rose had tried to snuff out—or at least mute—was only getting louder, constantly alerting her to its presence.

  A part of her flourished each time she took in those painfully beautiful lines of his face, the pitch black hair and the easy smile—sometimes fanged—that always seemed to tighten things low in her body. But there was no denying that she was pissed as well.

  Pissed at the god for leaving her to cope with everything alone when he was the one person who could actually aid her. Pissed that he had chosen to disappear rather than deal with the issues she—they—were facing. But most of all, she was pissed at herself for expecting anything else from the deity.

  Though the lord of the underworld’s particular reputation didn’t apply to her exactly, the fact that he was an immortal, power-ridden figure certainly did. In the end, he had protected his own ass just like every other higher-up would.

  Love, in light of that, meant little.

  She exhaled slowly, willing the itching claws to retract deeper inside her skin.

  There would be a time and place for a confrontation, but it wasn’t now. Even if hunting down a Vedmak seemed so unimportant when positioned side by side with the turmoil that was raging inside her.

  Despite her efforts, she wondered when it would begin. That evening in New York was too calm, too quiet still to be a reflection of the months she had been through. The months Veles had put her through.

  Yes, she had been emotional when the god appeared on the doorstep, but in retrospect, she had handled it quite well. Even the morning spent at her apartment, as well as the pack meeting at Pri Sojenicah, was civil. At times even more than that.

  However, she knew herself, knew the temper and stubbornness she had inherited from her mother and, well, father, from what little she had seen. Zarja was the hothead of the group, Evelin the silent, lethal threat. What lay in between belonged to Rose.

  She could suppress her emotions for a time, but sooner or later they would resurface with a vengeance.

  From the feel of it, they were inclining to do so now.

  She clenched her fists. She couldn’t explode. Not with Ljubljana’s streets stretched around them. Not with Serafina walking pensively by her side.

  The Koldunya had done so much for her, had been there for her without Rose ever having to ask. And that kiss they had shared… It had meant something. Though they both knew the path ended there, it had meant something. In another life, perhaps, it could have even been everything.

  She didn’t have the heart to unload the mess that was her mind on the witch. Serafina, of all people, was the one who le
ast deserved to be collateral damage in an uncontrolled outburst. She was her friend. She was pack. And some small, yet un-fucked up part of Rose loved her.

  She exhaled, putting a lid on her temper.

  The right time would come.

  Sticking firmly to her resolution, she didn’t dare glance at the god as they scouted the cafe where Zarja had seen the Vedmak. Instead, she turned to the Koldunya, forcing her mind to focus on the task at hand.

  “Sense anything?”

  Serafina shook her head. “Not from this distance.”

  Rose swore under her breath. She had feared as much. These days, nothing seemed to be easy.

  Sighing, she scanned the cafe. There were quite a few tables occupied, but no amount of people could be cover enough. And though she doubted the Vedmak had any reason to linger, the very idea of entering the place where the warlock had been repulsed her down to her very core.

  Grounding her teeth, Rose tilted her head in a silent command for the duo to follow.

  Every step of the way, she cursed herself more for choosing this, for choosing Veles, and alienating the pack, even when she knew this was the only way any of them stood a chance. Yet the wrongness of it resonated through her body. She ached for a cigarette between her fingers, or perhaps the presence of an entire barrel of wine to take her mind off things just for a little while.

  But as it was, the cafe loomed before her, and she was forced to shut down the endless babble of her contradicting—more often than not—thoughts, allowing the energy to take control instead.

  The one good thing working in a smaller group brought was that they truly looked like three people scouting the place for a free table. Nothing more, nothing less. Since the only ones left were submerged in shadows, they had the perfect cover of searching for one where they could soak in the sun like every true citizen of Ljubljana did every spring.

  Their energy, however, tucked deep in the confines of their cores, spoke of an entirely different matter.

  To Serafina’s credit, the Koldunya had managed to stifle the same sensation that was now growing in Rose, churning her stomach. The witch looked positively distraught by the unappealing seating options while the whispers of Mokoš hinted at the true reason of discomfort pooling underneath the surface.