Julia's expression grew puzzled, then troubled as she began to wearily make possible connections. Marcus interrupted her internal deliberations.
“The wolf will come, as will the vampire. Those two come into the play of your freedom from the blood-binding. Without them relinquishing you through blood, you will not be free of them, and therefore, cannot reign as you were meant to.”
“Jason will kill me,” Julia said, proud that her voice didn't tremble with fear, or with the other emotions she associated with the attack: grief, loss, denial and acceptance. Julia knew that William would not harm her. She had enough time in his presence coupled with firsthand knowledge to know that she was too critically important to harm. The vampires were all about self-preservation. And deep inside, Julia knew that he'd actually cared for her. A subtle thread of memory, like a slice of comfort came to her, almost like a dream and she struggled to capture it but it floated away when Marcus answered her statement.
“No,” Marcus said with certainty. Julia gave a little gasp of surprise. He had been there, Marcus had seen what Jason did to her. There was no doubt that if he hadn't lost consciousness at just the right moment she would've been toast. “He is Singer and from the looks of his wolf, a rare type of Were. There is no precedence. I take his actions toward you for confusion during the upheaval of his change in combination with your proximity...”
“You're saying... what? That he got bowled over by his emotions, went on sensory overload and momentarily forgot I was his wife?” Julia asked, her voice raised.
Marcus flinched but gave a satisfied look toward Julia, thinking not for the first time, how very astute she was for having only lived twenty years. “That's exactly what I am saying.”
Julia leaned back in shock. Could it be possible? That Jason was not acting rationally but instead, his wolf and human sides had jumbled at exactly the wrong time and in that sideways moment he'd acted without true thought? It shed light on the event in a whole new perspective.
Now what was she going to do? Legally she was married to Jason. Hell, she sure had been married to him in her heart. Things had changed though. He was no longer human but a Were, she had ten protectors in place because she was some kind of royalty for the Singers. Topping that off was a whacko visiting leader who blew poisoned snow at her in dreams and was the biological mother of a possible soulmate that had anger management issues.
Julia was screwed six ways to Sunday.
She furiously thought about all of it. Finally, she asked Marcus the biggest question that begged an answer, “What can save me from this mess?”
Marcus smiled, pleased again by her intellect. She would make a fine leader. If they could get her through to the other side of the Circle of Protection, he thought with a pang of trepidation.
“Your blood. It is your blood that holds they key. If we can but protect you a little longer, when you finally Awaken fully... then all hope is not lost.”
Julia stared at Marcus, so unlike Scott, but with a similar intensity and said in a low tone, reluctant to voice the obvious, “And if I don't 'Awaken' soon enough?”
“Then you are horribly vulnerable until that time.”
Wonderful news, Julia realized, feeling a little hopeless.
Marcus expounded, “This is why the Combatant stays close. They're protecting you until such time as you Awaken. And I will say this: the vampire and Jason, who is now more Were than any other thing, human or Singer, will come. It is compulsion. You carry their blood and as supernatural beings, that is what binds.”
Julia sighed.
“The Blood sings and calls to all that carry its counterpart. They will come and we shall be ready.”
You hope, Julia thought, leaving the room with more questions than answers.
Story of her life.
CHAPTER 19
Truman
Truman flipped his notepad closed. He left the small convenience store in a subdivision of greater Gig Harbor. The bell tinkled over his head as he exited, the sign missing a T as it swung in the slight breeze above his head. It should have read Arletta Stop & GO! Instead, it read, Arleta Stop & GO! The exclamation mark was a mere suggestion after sixty years of weather and sun. Karl took a look around, finally heading to the spot where he thought there'd be some People of Interest.
Or in the case of his perps: werewolves.
He leaned hard on the checker, the granddaughter of the people that had owned the convenience store when it was a wide spot in the road. In fact, her family had homesteaded the area back at the turn of the last century, when a felled Douglas Fir could trim a whole house.
The conversation had been an interesting one. Karl had the feeling like the hard-miler broad had been waiting for the other shoe to fall and when Truman walked in, it did.
At first she put up the typical fight of feigning ignorance but Truman's nose had caught the scent and he was a literal bloodhound.
Irene had told him that there was a religious sect that lived in the center of a hundred mile forested patch of land.
Religious his ass. They were religious all right, religious about hiding, he figured.
Truman remembered what she hadn't said, and how that had sharpened his speculations to a razor's edge.
“They don't bother nobody,” her shadowed eyes landed on Truman's significantly. “And nobody bothers them, leastways locals,” she said in a true smoker's grate. Truman was almost jealous as the smoke from her cig curled to tease him, the cloud of gray between them like a lover's caress.
God he missed smoking.
She had given him a subtle warning to get lost but he wasn't going to bite. He was made of sterner stuff.
Irene took a long, hollow-cheeked drag of her menthol and with a practiced flick, landed the one inch ash in the glass ashtray with uncanny precision. Truman noticed the ashtray had a special molded pouch for a matchbook. Old-fashioned.
“You got official business with 'em?” she asked, blowing a puff into the air where it joined the general fog of smoke from a thousand other smokes, the ceiling gone from true white to a dim gray. Karl watched the smoke lift and filter along the ceiling, transfixed.
He came back to himself with a start. “Yeah, I do. There's a missing girl and we have reason to believe....”
“Say no more.” She paused, holding her cig like a joint and took that last, lung-singeing draw before stabbing it out in her ashtray in a vicious crush of ember and tobacco. “Just don't sing about me. 'Cuz I'll be the one that pays, not y'all.”
Truman frowned. “I don't think you have to worry about retribution from my official police visit ma'am.”
Irene looked at him for a moment, weighing his words carefully while lighting another cigarette with her trusty Bic. “Yeah, I gotta worry. I live here. My family's always lived here. We'll live here after you stir up that hornet's nest and they need somebody to sting. Who do ya think that'll be? Eh?”
Truman's excitement over the bone being found gathered a sense of unease at the edges. He'd take all the heat that could be dished but he didn't want to share the entree of danger with innocents.
He stared at a bedraggled Irene, rode hard and put away wet, long miles and time etched on her face like an unfortunate roadmap of land-locked isolation in a community that harbored danger.
“Don't worry ma'am, the trail won't lead back to you. I give you my word.”
Karl Truman remembered her words with a ringing clarity now, they'd wormed into the fabric of his memories perfectly.
“It could be more than your vow, officer. Much more.” Irene had not said those words in a thoughtful way.
She'd uttered them like a certain promise.
Karl shook his misgivings away like a wet dog sloughing water and jammed his key into the ignition, belting up. He drove toward the vague directions Irene had given him, his mind's eye conjuring that waffling cigarette smoke like a prop in the telling.
He drove.
When Truman reached the long dirt road that wound to
nowhere, he parked. Popping the trunk, he dumped his cop shoes for Xtra Tuffs. That'd do anywhere in a pinch. If the terrain had mud, muck or snow, bring it... he was prepared.
The wolves who watched his methodical progress were as well. The forward sentry racing to the den.
Alerting the pack to the stranger who smelled.
Scenting the trouble his presence signified on the wind.
*
Southeastern Kiss
There were no vampires of strong enough Singer blood to Shift. Even if there were sufficient blood quantum to be had, it did not guarantee that knack for shifting that William was lucky enough to possess. Yet, there was one vampire who approached that had enough Singer's blood to offer something else of use.
Merlin's former second-in-command, Mason, moved through the silent folds of the forest as a panther, his eyes reflective in the darkness. William turned slightly as he neared and caught the subtle flash of white fangs as he smiled and then it was gone.
He was a huge male, as many of Singer blood were bound to be.
Mason inclined his head and William answered his unspoken question. “It is done. The female Singer will lure Julia to our preordained meeting point.”
Mason appeared thoughtful, his shock of carrot hair blazing even in the night that had fallen around them. “This is our sacred prophesy playing out before us my brother.”
William just nodded. The next few hours would seal the fate of all supernaturals.
“I can scent the dogs,” Mason said almost offhandedly.
William could not, he would need to be in raven form and then he could scent and sight them with ease. How he wished his sight matched that of his other form. Mason was extremely fortunate to have the dual ability that some Singers possessed. He had the Tracking ability, smelling everything for miles. It had been instrumental in William's capture. However, in the end, it was William's sharp intellect which had saved him from the tender mercies of the Southeastern Kiss.
Which was now his. William was linked to every vampire who had blood-share with that kiss, the blood of their leader beating within his body, the control of the kiss was now William's by default, by usurpation via the death of their former leader.
“How far?” William asked softly.
“They approach from the south.” Mason lifted his nose, a pale beacon in the air, his nostrils flaring once then responded, “perhaps ten miles...” he inhaled deeply, bringing air with a coaxing gesture of his hand to his nose, “and they slow.”
William nodded, his battle strategy, employed throughout the centuries were assisting his speculations handily. The Were would erect a camp then wait. Timing was crucial. Perhaps there be one in charge of the dogs who was a worthy opponent. Or worse, one with all that violent passion the wolves possessed but driven by strategy, in sync with himself. It was unlikely but William could not dismiss the potential. After all, they were after the Rare One as he was. The Packmaster would have selected those he trusted with such an errand. William opened himself to that faint pulse that marked where Julia was, and even underneath the call of her blood to his, William could feel the tenor of her emotions.
What he found troubled him. The fragility of Julia was wound in a knot of anxiety. Almost as if... she waited for something.
A bloated portent.
Could she be closer to fully Awakening than even he knew?
*
Julia
Julia had her knees tucked underneath her chin, her fingers tracing errant patterns in the pebbles that bordered the lake, the swans long-gone, no water creature in sight, a light breeze disturbing the surface slightly. She had one arm wrapped around the bend of her knees, her mood pensive. She could feel the Combatant at her back, actually Julia could feel their presence like a wall of solid, unreadable blank spots in her head. Where there was the incessant whispering of voices, dulled slightly by Paul there were holes of silence in that vast space.
It was where the Combatant dwelt.
Her protectors were blanks in her telepathy. Julia thought she should be thankful, instead, she found it vaguely disturbing.
Julia picked up a pebble and spun it into the water.
Then she pinged three with her mind, smacking them into each other like stone pellets, where they crashed into the surface, shattering the stillness in different directions. It made a mess of the water.
It was a reflection of how she felt.
She found her mind incessantly circling Marcus' words from before. That Jacqueline was not a threat, that all prophetic dreams were not to be taken as a literal translation. Well, he hadn't been there and it seemed as though Jacqueline was the catalyst for the dream. Yet, logically it couldn't be her that was a problem. Hell, Jacqueline's advisor was a Combatant. Of course, his mind couldn't be read but his actions could.
Like now.
Julia felt him at her back and that warmth began where he stood, the wall of heat that perfectly fit his body shape pushing her from behind, enveloping her, like a slow burning ember.
“Julia,” he said.
“Yes, Victor?” she answered, rising.
“You knew it was I?”
She faced him, nodding. Julia looked up at Victor. It was a stretch, like all the Combatant, they were giants, a foot or more taller than herself. It was his eyes that took Julia back. Seeing him in the nighttime did not do them justice. She'd thought them a dark color, as Scott's were, like black velvet, as his natural mother's were. But no, they were a deep shade of blue, like midnight kissed with navy. His hair was a glossy sand color, wishing to be blond but having that warm hue that comes from brunette.
Julia realized she'd been staring and blushed. He had the same effect on her that Scott did.
That sobered her. The soulmate crap. Just thinking about it chased away those soft warm feelings of connection that apparently were part and parcel to her lovely lineage. Blood born ties.
Victor moved to touch her and she stepped back and his hands dropped by his sides, his clothes were perfection and it suddenly reminded her of Cyn. She was like his fashion slave twin and it made Julia giggle in the middle of the situation and she laughed harder.
Victor looked at her like she'd lost her mind. “What is so funny?”
Julia held her side, helpless at the ridiculous thought, the sharp eyes of the Combatant drilling her. Julia ignored them. Finally, she was able to calm down enough to respond, “My friend Cyn...”
“Whom?” Victor asked.
“Oh yeah... Cynthia Adams. We just,” Julia gulped her emotion like a bitter pill, “called her Cyn like a nickname.”
“She does have a proper name then,” Victor said, the ghost of a smile on his lips, giving Julia a jab of subtle humor which pleased her. She'd thought he was as humorless as his leader. Humorless people needed to go, Julia thought randomly.
“Yes.” Julia smiled then explained further, “She was very... concerned about fashion,” she finished as diplomatically as possible.
“And how is that humorous?” Victor pressed.
“'Cuz you're a poster boy for fashion,” Michael interrupted them and Julia took another step away from Victor, who frowned at the added distance, turning his displeasure on the other man.
“You tread where even angels fear, my friend.”
Michael cocked a fair brow, and made like he had two wings on either side of his body and flapped them in a highly annoying parody of the heavenly beings. “Yeah? I'm not much of a poetry fan, pal.”
Julia muffled a low groan.
“Yes, I gathered that by your general lack of manners,” Victor said, his body going suddenly still.
Uh-oh, Julia thought, watching Michael get That Look. The same look all his brothers got and Scott had in spades when their Jimmies were good and rustled.
“Let's take a chill pill fellas, we don't need any testosterone surge here with the world showing up for fun soon.”
They looked at her and she nodded. “Marcus told me what the deal was. And I, for one..
. don't want inner sanctum squabbles.”
“Nothing would prevent or distract the Combatant from protecting the Queen,” Victor said by rote.
“Ha!” Michael snorted in dismissal.
Wonderful, Julia thought, sensing the wounded male pride that would need to be assuaged.
The rest of the Combatant came trooping up and Julia's heart sank. Michael grinned like the Cheshire cat and gave them a come hither look. Julia knew what he would do before Scott yelled out a warning.
It was his wink that told the story for Julia.
Suddenly the Combatant were neck deep in stinking piles of manure and Julia was in hysterics, Scott's face an unbecoming purple color. She had always had trouble with the need to laugh at inappropriate times and this was no exception.
“Hey guys!” Michael said as he ran at Julia. “I think she'll be okay while you guys brew in a pile of shit for thirty seconds.”
“Oh Michael... that is so wrong on about fifty different levels,” Julia barely got out, the laughter giving her an unladylike case of hiccups that wouldn't quit.
“Lighten up guys, that's what queenie here needs. You're all brimstone and fire and she needs a break from your meathead asses.”
This is bad, Julia thought, seeing the Combatant's faces, Scott and Victor seemed especially pissed. Michael grabbed Julia's hand and dragged her up the small hill and away from some very angry protectors as they struggled to get out of the mess he'd put them in.
“She isn't safe,” Scott bellowed from his pile of excrement.
Julia covered her mouth to stifle her laughter. “Thirty seconds?” she asked, horrified.
Michael flushed a deep red and Julia cocked a brow. “It might be a tad longer,” he said with mock innocence with his thumb and forefinger a hairsbreadth apart to show how much longer.
The Blood Bundle, Books 1-2: Blood Singers and Blood Song (New Adult Paranormal Vampire/Shifter Romance) Page 45