Blood Melody

by Val St. Crowe

  I looked up at her. “Yeah?”

  She smiled. “Yeah. He’s good for you. He’s the kind of mate you should have. You’re an alpha. You wouldn’t be satisfied with someone who submitted to you, who was lesser than you. You have the whole pack doing that. You need someone who challenges you. You need someone who keeps you on your toes. I look at the two of you, and I get it. It makes sense.”

  I rubbed at my temples. “But if it makes sense, and it’s right, then why are there so many obstacles in our way?”

  “Maybe because not everything is easy. Some things worth doing are difficult.”

  I smiled tiredly at her. “When did you become so wise?”

  “Me? Always been this way. Born this way.

  I laughed.

  She squeezed my hand. “Talk to Landon about it, okay?”

  I nodded. “Yeah. You’re right.”

  * * *

  But I didn’t talk to Landon.

  We went to the bloods’ headquarters together, trekking through the woods from the pack village, and we were alone the whole time, and there was tons of time to talk about it, and I didn’t bring it up.

  Because now I was afraid he’d tell me it was too dangerous.

  And maybe it was. There was not only the danger of it not working and of Landon hurting me, but there was the danger that the injection could affect Landon badly. I couldn’t ask him to take a risk like that for me, just so that I would have a mate to secure the spell for my pack.

  Of course, eventually, I was going to have to take a mate. This deal with the bloods would buy us time, but it wouldn’t last forever.

  The new vampire regime, with Ondine at the head, hadn’t released the bloods or anything like that. We assumed that it would be business as usual. I might be able to call in favors with her, but maybe not. She didn’t know that I was a werewolf, after all.

  We arrived at the bloods’ headquarters and knocked on the door.

  “You,” said the bloodhound who opened the door.

  “I’m here to see James,” I said.

  The bloodhound shut the door in my face. I was getting the impression that they were never going to invite me inside.

  Several minutes later, James appeared. He looked me over. “Well?”

  “Well, we’ve got Aston Waterfield and he’s ready to take out your chips,” I said. “Come with us.”

  James looked genuinely startled. “You… you actually pulled this off?”

  “I told you that I keep my word,” I said.

  “What if this is some kind of trick?” he said. “You won’t take out our chips. Instead, you’ll kill us.”

  “That would be a pretty dumb thing to pull,” I said. “You’ll all be inside our village. If one of you doesn’t come back good as new, then I would assume you’d all attack us. We haven’t finished rebuilding from the last time you did that.”

  James stroked his chin, considering all this. “All right,” he said. “All right, we’ll see if you’re telling the truth.”

  * * *

  We led the bloodhounds through the woods and back to the village. I had to bring them through, since they were unable to get through the protective spell on their own. We brought them to the main lodge, where Aston was waiting, looking almost eager. I got the impression he enjoyed cutting things open.

  “Who’s first?” said Aston.

  To no one’s surprise, James didn’t volunteer to go under the knife first. Instead, he sent in one of the other bloods, who didn’t seem particularly pleased about being the sacrificial lamb.

  But in fifteen minutes, when he came back with a bandaid on the back of his neck, telling everyone that he was free of the vampires, the rest of the bloods started fighting each other over who got to go next and James had to get violent to impose order.

  After that, the bloods went in, one after the other, and James kept an eye on them.

  “So,” I said to him, “can I assume this buys us safety long term? That you’ll consider us allies?”

  “Allies, yes,” said James. “Friends, never.”

  I didn’t want to be his friend, anyway. I stood back and watched, just wanting to make sure that everything was going well. While I did, Judah came into the main lodge.

  I acknowledged him with a little wave. We hadn’t been talking very much lately. We’d spoken briefly after I’d returned. He’d spent most of our discussion telling me that I couldn’t leave without approval of the council. I had smiled and nodded, thinking that I would do whatever I damned well pleased, and that there was nothing he could do about it.

  Judah made his way across the lodge to me. “So, I see that you’re getting the bloods’ chips out.”

  “Yes,” I said. “Finally making good on my deal. I keep my word.”

  “It’s great,” he said. “Except it maybe doesn’t matter anymore.”

  “What are you talking about?” I said.

  “It’s all over the news,” he said. “The new leaders of the vampire government are offering citizenship to wolves. They’ll let entire packs come out of the woods and establish their own cities, inside the fences.”

  “Are you serious?” I said. “Well, that’s…” I wasn’t sure what to think. “That’s good. I think that’s good. Except I don’t want to leave here. This is our home. We’ve worked so hard to rebuild. Do you want to leave for some strange new town?”

  “I didn’t say I was all for it,” he said. “There are some provisions made. First, all the new citizens have to donate blood, just like the humans.”

  “Well, that figures,” I said.

  “But the kicker is that the vampires want the alphas to have a close relationship with an assigned vampire liaison,” he said. “They didn’t come right out and say it, but basically the vampires would turn the alphas into blood slaves. Compel them. Control the pack that way.”

  I gasped. “That’s awful.”

  “That’s what I think,” said Judah. “But I don’t know if the other wolves in the pack are going to agree. It sounds like a great deal to some of them, especially the human contingent. Of course, any wolf pack that doesn’t surrender to these terms will be hunted mercilessly by the vampires. So, they’re afraid. And our protective spell is weak.”

  I shut my eyes. “Right. Of course they’d be worried.”

  “They’ve called a council meeting tonight. I’m expecting it’s going to be packed. We need to talk about what it is to be a blood slave. We need to make them understand what the vampires are asking.”

  * * *

  “With all due respect, Camber,” Neil was saying, “since you’ve joined this pack, we’ve been in constant danger. Why, only today, you brought thirty bloods into our village—”

  “Those bloods are our allies,” I interrupted, yelling over the conversation that had broken out amongst the gathered pack members. The council meeting was jammed full. So many people had turned out that they didn’t all fit into the main lodge meeting room and they spilled out into the hallway outside. “I made a deal with them and I honored that deal. It wasn’t easy to do so, but I have protected the pack.”

  “Exactly,” said Neil. “It wasn’t easy. It was, in fact, an undertaking you participated in at huge risk to yourself and therefore the pack.”

  “Everything I do is for the pack,” I said.

  “Ah, yes,” said Neil. “Except you won’t mate. And you know that if you mated, the protection spell that surrounds the village would be strong and we would be safe from the vampires, no matter how they hunted us.”

  I licked my lips. “Listen… I may have… there may be a development on that front, but I’m not yet at liberty to say.”

  “You owe your pack its safety,” said Neil.

  “That’s enough,” said Mary. “We’ve heard what you have to say, Neil.”

  Neil shook his head. “I’m only concerned is all.”

  Judah stood up. He cleared his throat. “Listen, that’s not what’s important tonight. What’s important is th
at the pack understands why we cannot submit to the vampires.”

  “We do understand,” said Neil. “You have both spoken at length tonight about the dangers of being compelled by vampires. We would not have our alphas at the mercy of those monsters. We would rather not leave our home. But if our alphas can’t protect us, I think some of the pack members may feel as if they have little choice. They may not know where to turn.” He turned on me. “Camber. You must mate. You must strengthen the spell. If you do this, there is no more danger.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Landon was leaning against the door frame in the living room, looking down at his shoes. “I thought we were done with this.”

  “You heard what I said about the injection, right?” I said.

  “Yeah, I heard you.”

  “Well… I thought we owed it to ourselves to try it,” I said.

  “You trust Waterfield?”

  “No…” I spread my hands. “I don’t know.”

  A pounding on a door. “Hey, I can hear you, you know!”

  Landon sighed. “Well, so much for a private conversation.”

  “I guess that’s why you haven’t let me go, then? I knew you were interested in the injection!” called Aston.

  I grimaced. “You might as well let him out. If you have questions, you can ask him.”

  Landon grimaced back. “This is not something I want to talk about with him.” But he went and opened the door and Aston came out, rubbing his hands together.

  “So, tell us about the injection, Aston,” I said.

  “I did,” he said. “I told you already. It’s a one-time thing. It runs through certain pathways in the brain, but it burns them out when it does.”

  “Wait, so he could take the injection and for an hour, no rage mode, but the injection would never work again?” I said.

  “Right,” said Aston.

  I blinked. “One shot. We’d only get one shot to… to…”

  “You’d have to cram a lifetime of lovemaking into one evening,” said Aston, grinning. “Can you imagine how amazing that would be?”

  Landon glowered at him. “Never say that word again in front of me.”

  “Amazing?”

  “Lovemaking.”

  Aston winked at him. “You’re not much of a cuddler, are you?”

  “Aston,” I said.

  “What are you talking about?” said a voice.

  We all turned to see Desta, coming in from the other side of the room. She went out for long walks at night sometimes. I didn’t know what she did. I knew she wasn’t going to stay here forever, but I’d been putting off that conversation as long as I could. And this conversation, well… I had refused to allow myself to think about having this conversation.

  No one said anything.

  Desta stalked across the room. “Lovemaking?”

  I stepped in front of her. “Desta, I’m sorry. I haven’t talked to you about it, because… well, it’s impossible for Landon and I to be together, regardless of how we feel, so why make things complicated—”

  “How you feel?” She turned and looked at Landon. “How do you feel, Landon?”

  Landon met her gaze, staring her down.

  “Say it,” said Desta, and her voice trembled.

  “I’m into your sister,” he said.

  “No, you’re not,” said Desta. She looked at me. “He’s only doing it to hurt me. He knows it makes me crazy to think of him with you—”

  “It’s not like that at all,” said Landon.

  Desta’s hands clenched in fists. “Yes, it is. It’s just one more way to get back at me, by breaking my little sister’s heart!”

  Landon shook his head. “I’m in love with her.”

  I gasped a little. Oh, he’d never said that— And then I saw Desta’s face. “Look, Desta… the thing is, the pack—I have to be mated for the protection spell on the village, and so, it’s for the pack—”

  “You think you love him too?” she said softly.

  “I…” I looked away.

  “You know I love him,” she said.

  “No,” growled Landon.

  She rounded on him. “Just because you hate me now doesn’t mean you can deny what we had—”

  “We had nothing,” he said. “The man that was with you was your own twisted creation. I was a robot that spouted what you wanted to hear. I wasn’t myself. You don’t love me. You love something that never existed.”

  A single tear spilled out of Desta’s eye.

  I went to her, to hug her.

  She pushed me away, and with such force that I stumbled backwards.

  Aston giggled. “Oh, blood and fangs!”

  Desta turned to him. “You can do it, then. You can make it so they mate?”

  Aston winked at her. “You don’t want me to, Desta? What’ll you give me? I remember how you paid me off when you wanted the chip out of him. Do you have access to anything like that now?”

  Desta’s nostrils flared. “You’re awful.”

  “And she’ll kill me,” said Aston, pointing at me. “I have no choice.”

  “You’d do anything to get to play around in your lab,” said Desta. “You don’t care who gets hurt.”

  “Look, I haven’t agreed to it yet,” said Landon.

  “But you will,” said Desta. “Because you know what it will do to me. And there’s nothing you won’t do to hurt me.”

  “It’s not about you, Desta,” said Landon.

  Desta whirled on me. “Camber, you’re my sister. He should be off limits.”

  I licked my lips. I felt like crying too. “I’m sorry.”

  “You three are really better than my soaps,” said Aston in a throaty voice.

  “Screw you,” said Desta, and she pushed past all of us. She went down the hall and threw herself into her room. She slammed the door.

  “Oops,” said Aston. “Was it something I said?”

  “Shut up, Aston,” I said.

  Landon sucked in a noisy breath. “So, when do we do this?”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  It turned out that Aston didn’t have the ingredients he needed to make the injection here, so we were going to have to go and get them. Unfortunately, there was only one place that stocked the necessary supplies. It was about an hour’s drive away in human territory, a warehouse that didn’t have a problem shipping to humans or vampires, but wouldn’t send things into the woods, of course.

  We discussed the idea of having the supplies shipped to my parents, but I didn’t want to get them involved and potentially in trouble. Besides, that would take a while for the supplies to arrive, and we wanted to do this sooner rather than later, because the pack was worried. Also, I didn’t know that it would be a good idea to just show up at my parents’ place like that.

  So, then we thought of the idea of going there to get the ingredients, taking them by force. I could shift, and we’d tear through anyone who would try to stop us. Of course, that meant we’d alert the authorities and they’d probably dispatch vampires or bloods to deal with us, and it got exponentially more dangerous if things went badly.

  Which is when I had another idea.

  It was late afternoon. I knocked on Desta’s door. She had come out about an hour earlier for coffee and breakfast, which she usually had after 3:00 PM. But she hadn’t spoken to anyone.

  “Desta?” I said softly.

  She yanked the door open. It was dark in her room. She’d put blankets up over the windows. She had another blanket wrapped around her shoulders. She looked wan and tired in the daylight, the way vampires usually did.

  “What?” she said.

  “Uh…”

  “You know, Camber, I can’t stay here anymore. I have to go back to the city, take my chances. The vampires who took over haven’t been hurting any vampires besides Viggo. I should be fine. You can’t force me to stay here and watch you with him.”

  “I…” I nodded. “I figured you’d go back to the city eventually. May
be I shouldn’t even have brought you out here. That was the original plan, but with Ondine taking care of Viggo, it was overkill. He was the one I was trying to save you from. You’re a vampire. You’re never going to be happy here.”

  She licked her lips. “Well… well, good.”

  “Listen, I need to ask you a favor.”

  Her eyebrows shot up. “Are you kidding me? After everything, you come in here with your hand out?”

  “I, um, in order to get ingredients that Aston needs for the injection—”

  “Landon’s injection, so that you two can bone.” She folded her arms over her chest.

  “Mate,” I said. “For the pack.”

  She rolled her eyes.

  “Well, it would just be easier if you helped us get in there to get the ingredients,” I said. “You can compel the people to let us in and to show us where the ingredients are and to hand them over. Otherwise, we’re going to have to resort to violence.”

  She just glared at me.

  “So, um, will you help me?” I said.

  She drew in a breath and looked at the ceiling.

  I waited.

  She leveled her gaze at me. “Have you considered the possibility that he is just using you to hurt me?”

  “He’s not,” I said. “He hasn’t… used me for anything. He can’t—”

  “You obviously have feelings for him, so he could break your heart. He could break your heart the same way he broke mine.”

  “I don’t think…” I scuffed my toe against the floor. “I mean, is that fair, Desta? Maybe your heart was broken, but what happened to him—”

  “Exactly, and that’s why he’d do anything to hurt me, even hurt you,” she said. “How can I help him do that?”

  “Look, I don’t think that’s what this is about with Landon.”

  “But have you considered that it’s possible?”

  “I…”

  “Admit it. It’s possible.”

  I spread my hands. “I guess it’s possible, but—”

  “Thank you,” she said. She sniffed. “Fine. I’ll help you.”

  I was thoroughly confused. What was that all about?

  * * *

  But as we were driving together in silence for the next hour, I thought I understood why she’d done it. She’d planted doubts in my head.