Alpha Blood

by Tamara Rose Blodgett

  The female’s screams wail and gnash. Gritting her teeth, Tahlia makes slow agonizing progress back to the woman’s side.

  Lifting the bat as high as she dares, Tahlia puts the fat end into the screaming human’s mouth like a plug, breaking her teeth and silencing the howling.

  Relieved, Tahlia wavers, fighting passing out. But there’s no time for that.

  She must keep moving.

  Her eyes rise to cars rushing past on Highway 101. Traffic is picking up as dusk lightens the sky with the bright white light of dawn.

  These males will awaken and can now kill her in the weakened state she’s found herself in.

  The embankment appears steep and long from where she stands. Tahlia keeps plugging and dragging her body up the slope that leads to the highway, having to pause, breathing through shredded ribs.

  After forty minutes of trudging up the side, slipping, and nearly falling once on the soft gravel shoulder, Tahlia is free of the forest and the honorless humans who attacked her.

  She releases the handle of the bat and lets it roll back down the embankment.

  The instrument used against Tahlia is covered in blood. That would attract notice, of course.

  She steps to the side of the road, where a pure white line flanks the flat gray asphalt. As cars whiz by, Tahlia turns her arm away from her body down low and sticks out her thumb, praying to the moon that the next human who encounters her will not hurt her.

  At this point, Tahlia doesn’t know who she can trust.

  Definitely Drek.

  She realizes too late that stalling, her indecision, has put her here. The internal conflict was not steeped in logic.

  When a vehicle pulls over, she walks slowly to it, and a human male takes one look at her face. “You hurt?”

  Tahlia nods.

  “Okay—hospital?”

  She shakes her head, suppressing a shudder. That’s all the humans need is definitive proof of her kind.

  They’ll hunt the Were to extinction.

  One hour more, and she should be a quarter of the way healed. Not like a human.

  But like Lanarre royalty.

  Right now, Tahlia is low on food, which is desperately needed to fuel her healing.

  Tahlia was awoken before she was ready.

  And the traitors of the Hoh pack might be scenting her even now, though Moon knows, Drek would have killed himself trying to slow them.

  This human male shows his emotions on his face. He’s unsure. A female hitchhiker at four in the morning with blood-soaked hands and taking gasping breaths might give him pause.

  No. He’ll say no.

  “How far?”

  At first Tahlia can’t speak, she’s so relieved. Finally, she manages to gasp out the location of Adi’s home pack, the Northwestern. “Gig Harbor.” There’s a lilt in her voice.

  His nod is quick. “Heading to Tacoma. That’s why I started early. Beating the traffic.”

  Tahlia nods quickly.

  He clears his throat. “Did a man do that to you?”

  “No,” she says, voice soft.

  The stranger leans forward, apparently to catch her words.

  “A woman.”

  Tahlia listens to the clicking sound his hazard lights make, watching the wheels of his mind turn. He scrubs his jaw with a hand, eyes traveling over her beaten form again, and finally says, “Jesus.”

  Yes, Tahlia agrees but says nothing.

  “Hop in,” he says, the interior locks popping in their holes.

  She begins to lift the door handle and yelps.

  Their eyes meet.

  “Hang on,” he mumbles and gets out. He comes carefully around the front of the car to avoid the whooshing traffic that rushes beside them then opens the door. Tahlia moves to go past him, and he says, “Hold on to my arm, then just release it when your butt hits the seat.”

  “Okay.”

  Tahlia braces her hand on his arm, gritting her teeth all the way down until her rear finds the solid surface of the car seat.

  “You good?” he asks.

  Tahlia suddenly wonders what color his eyes are and what his name is. Her savior.

  She doesn’t ask, because at that precise moment, he bends down and gently lifts her lower legs, swinging them around until her feet touch the passenger-side floorboards.

  Tahlia grips the sides of the seat, biting her lower lip to keep from groaning.

  “You must’ve really got worked over.”

  She can only nod through the agony.

  He shuts the door, pushing on it to make sure it latches, then trots around to the other side and slides into the car much more easily than Tahlia could have.

  Watching the side mirror for a space in the line of cars he eases into traffic, gaining speed.

  Tahlia doesn’t take her eyes off the rearview for a long time.

  Uncertain whether or not it’s her imagination, Tahlia sights a group exiting the very spot she did just minutes ago.

  My eyes are playing tricks on me, Tahlia hopes as she relaxes against the seat.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Drek

  D rek didn’t realize he would die at the hand of his pack, that Bowen would die in his stead, or that his female whelpmate would be brutalized by Neil and his knot of supporters.

  Drek eyes the water from flat on his stomach. Rolling over on his back with a raw groaning exhale, he flattens his wolfen palm on his lower stomach. Holding his guts within the cavity of his body, Drek uses his other hand to drag his beaten body toward the shore.

  The task takes over an hour, during which time, he passes the limbs and dismembered corpses of four males.

  He’s shared meals and laughter with these males. A commonality of caretaking of the Hoh.

  No. In the end, they’d craved only power. Now they were dead for their efforts. And Drek can feel his own life slipping away. He hasn’t saved Tahlia. He’s only delayed them from hurting her.

  Hopefully, she used her wits and has gone to the Northwestern. She has a good lead ahead of Neil.

  He made certain that the damage he meted would not be healed easily.

  Then he needed to choose between leaving Drek to die a painful and slow death alone or losing ground on Tahlia.

  Drek won’t kid himself. Neil was spurred into action sooner because of Tahlia.

  He wants her for himself, and now she’s in heat, a delectable female.

  Moon. This is all his life has come to—a pack decimated by internal strife and power struggles.

  His female is in a fragile state because of her first breeding cycle, and there’s nothing he can do but slow the wheel that Neil has put into motion.

  Drek is so thirsty.

  He finally reaches the shore and dips his lips to the cold water. Something hot spreads around him, and he keeps drinking.

  When his blood colors the water he drinks from, he lifts his head.

  I am tired, Drek thinks as he lays his head down on the still-warm pebbles.

  He will rest for a moment then maybe figure a way out of this.

  The water laps at his hair, fanning it around his body as he lies dying.

  Tahlia

  Something is shaking her.

  Tahlia is groggy. The first thing she notices is her breaths aren’t crushing her in agony.

  She’s felt better, there’s no doubt. Ribs are some of the slowest healing parts of the body.

  It’ll be a week or two before she’s healed. But she can breathe. And on the heels of that thought—she’d love to eat. But right now, she’s got a human to deal with.

  Cracking an eyelid, she realizes the human male who gave her a ride is hanging over the top of her.

  She tries to snap upright and head butts him.

  “Shit!” he yells, slapping a hand over his forehead.

  “Sorry,” Tahlia says, rubbing the new lump she’ll have. “I was startled.”

  “No kidding,” the human says, eyeing her cautiously.

  Tahlia s
upposes that’s fair.

  “Where are we?”

  His hand drops, and Tahlia has a moment to take him in during broad daylight while he’s looking around and she’s not half beaten to death.

  “What’s your name?” she asks.

  He turns back to Tahlia, and she guesses he’s around thirty in human years, solidly built with deep-chestnut-colored hair and mossy-green eyes.

  They’re kind eyes.

  “Brent.” He raises an eyebrow, and she notes he has a lump forming where she thunked him.

  Great.

  His expression remains expectant.

  “Oh, yeah.” She gives a self-conscious laugh. “Tahlia.”

  He puts his hand out, and Tahlia has a moment of confusion then realizes he’s executing the human custom of shaking hands.

  She grips his hand, and a tingle starts, racing from their point of contact through her body.

  Brent jerks his hand away. “What the hell was that?”

  Tahlia doesn’t know. And instead of offering an answer she doesn’t know, she asks, “Can we get something to eat?”

  Her stomach roars, and she gives a small laugh, covering her belly with a palm.

  Brent chuckles. “Okay, I’m not going to ignore the fact that you don’t have a single damn clue why we both felt like we put our fingers in a light socket, but okay.”

  Tahlia gulps. She’s about done with her quota of weirdness, tragedy, and stress for at least a lifetime.

  He nods. “Gotcha.” Brent turns his head, peering through a dirty windshield. “Got Little Caesar’s Pizza.”

  Tahlia stares back at him blankly. Pizza.

  “You don’t know what pizza is?” He makes a sound of pure disbelief, his green eyes darting over her every micro-expression.

  Hmmm. “Does it have meat?” That is really the only important part of the meal, in Tahlia’s estimation.

  “Well, yeah.” He cards long, dexterous fingers through his rich hair, sighing. “You can have anything you want on it.”

  Tahlia nods, opening the car door. A few yards away, a sign affixed with a strange male figure clad in Roman-style clothing proclaims Pizza.

  I wonder if I’ll like this pizza, Thalia muses, eyeing the weird graphic.

  Brent studies her face for a moment. “You’ll love it, I swear.” His brows draw together. “I bet you don’t have any money, either, right?”

  Tahlia shakes her head. Of course, she’s never needed human currency before. There was never any need.

  She manages to swing her legs without much pain and touches her feet to the ground. Tahlia instantly realizes she cannot take deep breaths. Instead, she takes a couple of quick pants, and using her right hand, she grips the side of the car where door meets body and hauls herself upright.

  Pain rushes out in the form of a wheezing exhale, and suddenly, Brent is there.

  “Hey, easy, girl.” He takes her elbow, expression concerned.

  She tries not to laugh, but honestly, girl is just too funny. Tears run out of her eyes as Tahlia tries to stop her laughter through grinding pain.

  Brent clearly doesn’t know what to do and releases her elbow to grip her shoulders. “Stop laughing. I can tell it’s killing you.”

  Tahlia manages to stop laughing and tilts her head back to look up at him and smiles. “Not dead yet.”

  He smiles back.

  She decides Brent is a good male. For a human.

  “Come on,” he says, gently releasing her shoulders. “Let’s get some food, and then I can find out where you need to go.”

  Tahlia’s spirits dip. She’s not sure where the Northwestern is located, just that she needs to get there.

  Tessa might be there, and definitely the newly mated, loud-mouthed female, Adrianna, whom she liked very much, will be as well.

  She’ll have to sniff it out. Tahlia covers her laugh with a cough.

  Then another thought enters her brain, sobering her.

  Tahlia is fortunate. She escaped the Lanarre traitors, while Drek was not so lucky.

  Tahlia gingerly leans back on the front seat of Brent’s car.

  “Girl,” he begins, and she suppresses what would be a painful giggle, “you can eat like a horse.”

  No, dear human, like a Were.

  Putting a fist against her mouth, she stifles a less-than-delicate burp.

  She’s using about five empty pizza containers as a footrest.

  “Yes, I have a fine appetite.”

  “You speak strangely.” Brent’s eyes hood as he gifts her with a speculative look, taking a bite from his own pizza slice.

  His one box still holds two slices.

  Tahlia eyes them semi-lustfully.

  “Wow, okay—you want mine too?”

  Tahlia smiles, and from nowhere, a second belch erupts. Not a ladylike type.

  No, a cringe-worthy, full throttled bellow.

  Tahlia slaps a hand over her mouth, eyes tightening from the sudden movement.

  Oh good Moon.

  Brent doesn’t seem to mind, slapping his denim clad thigh. “That’s funny as fuck, truly.” He pivots the box so it faces Tahlia, and with a smirk and a twinkle in his dark-green eyes, he lifts his chin. “Go ahead, swine out.”

  “Swine out?” Tahlia repeats with a lilt but grabs one of the two slices left.

  They eat in companionable silence for a few more minutes, and Brent passes her the water bottle she wanted when asked what she'd like to drink.

  The pop confection the eatery sold seemed like a bad choice. Tahlia couldn’t be sure what the fizzing would do to her Lycan body. Better not to find out in the presence of a human she knows nothing about.

  Tahlia downs the entire one-liter bottle, trying and failing not to gulp it. The four pizzas and the water would keep her for the next day. If she had a little more body fat, she could go longer. Unlike some of the females, she’s unlucky and runs slim.

  As Tessa would say—it sucked.

  Brent touches his head briefly. “You’ve got a hard skull, girl.”

  A smile ghosts her lips. “It’s Tahlia.”

  He shakes his head. “Gotcha. Kinda like ‘girl.’” He winks.

  Since she isn’t one, it’s sufficient. At least for their obvious brief acquaintance.

  “Thank you for providing food,” she says softly.

  Brent wags a finger at her. “Don’t worry. I’ll take it outta your hide.”

  Tahlia’s face snaps to his, quarter change washing over her.

  “What I’d say?” he asks. But his eyes are sharp. Most humans can’t see a quarter change.

  However, though she doesn’t think Brent is aware, he’s something other than human. Something supernatural that doesn’t carry a scent.

  There are very few things that don’t. He can’t be vampire because it’s daylight.

  He could be demonic like Tessa’s Laz, but she dismisses that, as demons fare so badly in Between.

  That leaves Were.

  How sad to be mainly human with Lycan blood. Your entire existence would be like having a rare talent and not being allowed to use it.

  Doesn’t matter, Tahlia thinks. I’ll be leaving Brent and finding the Northwestern.

  I’ll never see the mixed-blood again, if indeed he holds the blood of her kind within his veins. That thought makes Tahlia sad. After all, if it had not been for Brent, she would have suffered a fate similar to Drek’s. The male didn’t deserve the ending he almost certainly received.

  “Well…” Brent uses a napkin to wipe off his mouth and tosses it in his empty pizza box. He leans back, patting his flat stomach. “I’m stuffed to the gills.”

  Tahlia is unfamiliar with the expression but understands he’s full. “Me too,” she answers then thinks, For now.

  He pulls out a cell phone and checks the time. “Well, Tahlia, I need to scoot. Gotta gig I need to go to.”

  She rolls her head in his direction. “What is your employment?”

  Brent gives her a quirky smil
e. “For the record, I just want to say I feel bad dropping you somewhere. You don’t seem really ready to be out there.” He taps the car window.

  “I’ll be fine,” Tahlia assures him. Nothing could be as bad as the Lanarre pack of the Hoh.

  Brent’s silent for a moment, his fingers tapping a rhythm on his denim pants. “I play guitar.”

  Tahlia grins. “That’s lovely. I adore music.”

  His smile is instant and genuine. His eyes roam her open expression. “You’re great, girl.” His face is mainly happy, Tahlia thinks, but his scent is sad.

  His expression going to neutral, Brent asks, “Where to?”

  Tahlia is nose blind in the box of metal.

  Brent starts the car, and Tahlia looks at the controls on the armrest. One looks like a tiny window. She presses the button forward, and the window slides downward, disappearing into the door.

  Interesting.

  Leaning forward, Tahlia closes her eyes and inhales deeply.

  Pizza and the smell of asphalt drive through the top layer of her senses.

  Deeper than that, she can smell ash from human cigarettes and knows that some human dumped them from their vehicle a week ago.

  She breathes more deeply. A sharp pain stabs her where her ribs were abused, but she gets her answer—past the smell of tidelands, trees, and the immediacy of human traffic everywhere in the few yards from where they sit parked.

  Her sensitive nose filters it all and finds the smell of her kind. West of their position.

  Opening her eyes, Tahlia looks at Brent.

  “What were you doing?” he asks, clearly bemused.

  Scent tracking. “Thinking,” she says then adds, “Would you take me about a mile west of here?”

  Slowly, Brent nods, clearly thinking about the time. “Sure, I can still make my gig.”

  “Onward, my friend,” Tahlia says.

  “I like the friend part… I think,” Brent says with a laugh.

  Tahlia turns to look at him as he hits a lever coming from the steering column and a small bright-red light indicates their direction. As he pulls into traffic, Tahlia ponders Brent’s comment: ‘I think’ what?