Crave: A Paranormal Shifter Romance (Blood Moon, Texas Shifters Series Book 2)

by Kat Kinney

  “We’ve got a situation.”

  I shot to my feet. “What’s going on?”

  “I checked the video feed. Topher’s gone. He jumped August, locked him in the cage.”

  “How long ago?”

  “He’s got maybe an hour lead on us. I don’t know how he managed to jack up the tracker in his wrist cuff. When I find him—”

  “Topher’s going to have to wait.” Cal ushered us towards his truck. “We’ve got bigger problems.”

  I shrugged into my coat, still off balance from the bourbon. “Come again?”

  “Sensors just recorded movement out north of the Christmas tree farm on the edge of town.”

  “Don’t tell me.”

  “River pulled up the aerial cameras remotely when August didn’t alert anyone to the tripped sensor. We’ve got incoming. At least half a dozen undeads.”

  12

  Lacey

  “OKAY, SERIOUSLY. YOU’RE SCARING HER.”

  Crouched at the other end of Dallas’s leather sectional, Hayden paused in what were either the lyrics to Daisy Addiction’s latest opener, some epic fail in cat-whispering techniques off of YouTube, or more likely knowing her, the beginnings of an exorcism, to scowl.

  “I’ll have you know that cats love me.”

  “You said that twenty minutes ago when she was behind the washing machine,” I reminded her.

  “I also suggested a butterfly net.”

  I growled. “You are not netting my cat.”

  Huffing, she rocked back on her four-inch platform Doc Martens. “Someone’s no fun.”

  I got down on my hands and knees, peering back into the crawl space. Godiva mewed when our eyes met.

  “Why don’t we move the couch?”

  “Please. That’s like, her favorite game.”

  Sighing, Hayden pulled out her phone. “Looks like she’s staying with Daddy, then.”

  “Because, helpful?”

  “You’re the one who picked out the cat without checking to make sure it wasn’t possessed first. Although she totally goes with my tattoo.” She snapped her fingers. “That’s what you need.”

  “A tattoo?”

  “I’m thinking a skull. Or a cupcake. Oooo… maybe a zombie cupcake.”

  “Yeah. Not my scene.”

  “Okay, but tats are hot. Plus, I bet Dallas would be into it. Especially if you get inked where he could see it while you two were—”

  “Um, overshare much?”

  Hayden’s phone chimed. Frowning, she swiped the screen. And then jumped up. “Change of plans. Got your weapons?”

  “Step away from my hell-cat.”

  She snorted, whirling to blow the sectional a kiss. “Cute. That was Ethan. Topher’s escaped and we’ve got vampires headed towards town.”

  I shot her a look. “Are you sure the guys aren’t pranking us? Because this all lines up a little too neatly for me. The undeads didn’t grab him… he just happened to run off at the exact moment they appeared?”

  “Yeah, that part doesn’t make sense.”

  My phone chimed at the same time hers did. Briefly locking eyes, we read the coded text from Brody.

  GameNight: Group meetup happening now. Dirty dozen poker tournament. Bring refreshments.

  Me: Cupcake and Daisy can’t wait. Text with deets.

  Going to the closet, I keyed open the gun safe in back and yanked out my go bag. “I’ve got extras. You drive.”

  * * *

  Located five miles north of town, Jack Frost’s Christmas Tree Farm was one of Blood Moon’s biggest attractions every December, drawing local families and visitors from across Central Texas. The farm boasted acres of fragrant green pines, hayrides, ornament decorating classes on the weekends, and a huge gift shop. Dallas and I came out every year the weekend after Thanksgiving so that I could pick out a tree (according to him, always the one furthest from the parking lot) and he could saw it down and haul it back to the car (his, not mine) while I sang along to Christmas carols and he acted like a total grinch.

  He drew the line at the gift shop. After the tree was safely wrapped in red and white netting and loaded onto the top of his Escalade, he scouted out a rocking chair on the front porch while I circled the ornament bedecked Fraser firs with what he called my crazy Christmas eyes. Could I help it if like a salmon returning to its ancestral birthplace, I was lured back once per year to sigh wistfully over little gingerbread men, whimsical spatulas, sugar plums and candy canes? Or, cough, the Edward and Bella ornament with the bloodred bow on top that might be hanging back on my tree at home? Don’t judge. Even for a bloodsucker, Pattinson was hot.

  We left Hayden’s deathtrap car concealed behind a row of snow-dusted trees just off the highway. Dressed in form-fitting black tactical gear, we shimmied our way through the barbed-wire fence. A gust of snowflakes swirled through my hair. I whipped my head to the north, where approaching headlights in the distance illuminated the near-deserted highway.

  “Crap,” Hayden breathed, grabbing my arm. “Hurry up.”

  Together we crouched behind a giant bushy pine, peeking between its prickly branches as a lone delivery truck lumbered past.

  Hayden’s phone chimed, startling an owl in a nearby tree.

  I rolled my eyes. “You want to turn that thing off before West starts tweeting out celebrity gossip updates? You’ll lure every leech in four counties down on top of us.”

  “Wow, why do I even like you?” Frowning, she tapped at the screen. “And for your information, that was Ethan. He’s back at the ranch, monitoring the perimeter. Things are still quiet. August is trying to get a drone up, but the wind is too high. Stationary cameras tracked Topher heading this way before he moved out of range. One shot on a camera a mile or so from here showed six figures making their way towards him.”

  “They’re here for Topher. And I’d bet anything he’s somehow been communicating with them all this time. Otherwise, the odds of him taking off at the exact moment the vamps showed up are astronomical.”

  Hayden cursed under her breath. We emerged from the wooded area beside the road onto the Christmas tree farm. Acres of evenly spaced pines stretched as far as the eye could see. It took nearly a decade to grow your average sized commercial Christmas tree. The fields due south held the more recent plantings—squat three-foot bushes that would provide neither us nor the undeads with any cover. Which meant they wouldn’t come that way. The mature pines in the fields beyond formed neat rows, having been systematically planted, mulched, and trimmed by workers year after year so that they cast perfect triangular shadows across the snowy ground.

  In other words, the ideal place to hide.

  We worked our way between the rows, keeping alert. Vampires had superior speed and strength to werewolves. I’d watched one deadlift a car without breaking a sweat. But they were fragile, sustaining lethal burns in seconds in direct sunlight and lacking any regenerative abilities beyond what most humans had. And in addition to dealing with tonight’s fanged and freaky complication, Hayden and I also had to avoid getting caught by the human owners of the farm while prowling around in the dark armed to the teeth and dressed like a SWAT team. Pretty sure Brody would hand us our asses for that one.

  “So if you’re right, how have they been communicating with Topher all along?” Hayden whispered. “West told me he and Cal strip-search his room daily.”

  “Obviously they missed something—”

  A howl sounded in the distance. Hayden and I froze. Heart pounding, I scanned the hillside leading down into the valley below. Neat rows of six-foot pines were pockmarked by freshly sawed-off stumps, bright yellow dust and scattered needles littering the fallen snow.

  Through the pack bond, I caught blurred images of Cal tracking in wolf form, felt more than heard West shouting something I couldn’t make out, and shuddered as the force of Dallas’s fear for me burned through the cold starless night like a brand.

  Shutting out the others, I pulled up the text from August with To
pher’s last known position along with the image they’d captured of the vampires. The shot was grainy, even at ultra-high resolution. But there were definitely six of them. And they’d been in a hurry, wherever they were going.

  Hayden spoke close to my ear. “If you’re right and this biologic agent came from us, that means the Council has known all along what was going on. And played dumb. Including River.”

  “Maybe.” Even I heard the hesitation in my voice. Why was I so unwilling to throw River Caldwell under the bus? Reluctance to betray his brothers aside, we all knew his loyalties were being tested between the Blood Moon pack and the Council. “This isn’t his area. Something like this would be need to know only. Even if he’s overheard rumors by now, or has his suspicions, he may have good reason to keep quiet.”

  “You really believe that?”

  “Knowing too much can be dangerous. Just look at what they did to my mother and your sister,” I said quietly. Hayden frowned, but I could see in her eyes that she knew I was right. “And River knows that better than anyone.” I thought of Sofia’s parting words to all of us before leaving town. Trust no one.

  “What are you thinking?” Hayden whispered beside me.

  “That we need to think like the undeads do.”

  “All bloodlust, all the time?”

  “Precisely.” We started down into the valley. “Vampires can’t dematerialize too many times in a row without resting. The older, more powerful ones can make more jumps, but on average you’re talking about two, maybe three trips in a twenty-four-hour period, max. I’m guessing they got dropped in north of here, then reformed past our initial perimeter sensors. They’d have to have an extraction plan—probably one that means staying close to the highway.”

  “If they’re too drained, they won’t be able to get back out.”

  “Exactly.”

  Hayden glanced down at my stomach and hesitated. “Don’t hate me for saying this, but should you be out here? I mean, I know you’re a total badass and all, but—”

  “They’ve already tried to kill me once. I won’t hide alone in my apartment clutching a knife, waiting for the moment some fang-head smashes through my window to abduct me and my child and lock us in a cage.”

  Because that rumor about the undead needing to be invited inside? Yeah, no. File that one right next to your stash of garlic cloves.

  The wind whipped through the trees, carrying with it the faint scent of human. Hayden’s eyes flashed wolf-gold. Vampire blood was naturally odorless, one of their best defenses against us. But for seventy-two hours after feeding, they took on the scent of the human or shifter they’d most recently drained.

  Raising my Glock, I jerked my chin. “You take point. I’ll cover.”

  The snow turned to sleet as we cut through the trees, the wind sending jagged shards of ice slicing into my cheeks. Careful to keep the link with Hayden open through the pack bond to make sure that she didn’t accidentally cross into my line of fire, I scanned the rows of Christmas trees, each shadowy form easily tall enough to conceal a person in the dark. The terrain grew rougher the further we advanced. Deep irrigation furrows had been carved into the black soil with thick hay spread out for mulch. The cold numbed my fingers until I couldn’t stop them from shaking in my gloves. I gritted my teeth. The night was steadily darkening, little moonlight getting through the gathering storm clouds—

  A branch snapped behind me.

  Ducking behind the nearest tree, I swept the surrounding field. An owl screeched somewhere out in the dark. Blood pounded in my ears, the roar of the wind loud as a freight train.

  Nothing.

  Nothing.

  Nothing.

  I forced my breathing to slow, testing the air, but there was only the scent of wet snow and pine. And yet I couldn’t dismiss the certainty I was being followed by something out there, silent and unseen in the dark. Sighting Hayden crossing over to the next row, I yanked out my phone and quickly texted August with frozen fingers.

  Me: Update?

  It took me two tries to tap out the message. The wind swirled sleet into my eyes. I shoved my phone back in my pocket. When I looked up, Hayden was gone.

  My heart jackknifed. Breath sawing in and out, I began to run. Footsteps darkened the freshly fallen snow. The thick tread of Hayden’s Doc Martens wove a crooked trail through mud, mulch and sleet, approaching a barbed wire fence. Fifty yards past it at the top of a hill stood an old red barn. Its paint was peeling. The wide door hung slightly crooked. Christmas lights were strung along the eaves of the roof. I knew from past trips into town after sunset that they were visible all the way out from the highway during business hours, and probably the only thing holding the aging structure together.

  Had Hayden been trying to get there? Seen something moving like I had and gone to investigate?

  I was nearly to the fence when I spotted something small and metallic gleaming in the snow. Upon closer inspection, it appeared to be a tiny silver cylinder, slim enough to fit in the palm of my hand. No, not a cylinder. An aerosol cannister.

  Fighting to keep my firing hand steady, I swept the area in a wide circle, stretching out through the pack bond to concentrate on the last place she’d been. Nothing. A gust of wind and sleet lashed through the valley, whipping angrily through the dark silhouettes of hundreds of identical conifers. My vision blurred, my pulse hammering so hard it hurt. Something stirred in the shadows off to my right.

  I whirled, gun trained on the movement.

  “Hayden?” I shouted over the howl of the wind, inching forward. Was I seeing things in shadows and craggy branches, a twisted tapestry woven from the threads of my deepest fears? I swallowed, tasting bile, the wolf feeling my panic and threatening to snap free from my bones.

  No. I still felt… a cold black hole where only seconds before Hayden’s presence had hummed in the pack bond, warm and alive.

  She was gone.

  Erased.

  We were being picked off one by one. And there was no one who could get here in time. The hair at the back of my neck rose, my fingers curling into claws. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught a shadow blurring from between the trees, all hard angles and sharp, sinewy power.

  I drew my dagger just in time, neatly sidestepping, allowing the vampire’s speed and momentum to carry him forward so that I opened a gash on his left forearm. He staggered back, the leather lapels of his trench coat flapping in the wind. He was tall, well over six feet with long dark hair and chiseled cheekbones. And unlike the wasted musculature and twitchy addict look most of the fighters from the lower castes had, this vampire was all hard muscle, staring me down as if he were made of stone. With a chill, I realized I recognized him from our databases. He was a suspected subordinate of Yuri, third in command to Zara, who reportedly controlled all the covens in Texas. If he was here—

  I flipped the knife. First rule in a fight: show weakness and you’re dead. “Run out of underlings to do your dirty work?”

  The black-haired vampire smiled coldly, revealing enormous fangs. “Maybe I like hunting for little girls lost in the woods. The thrill of a good chase stirs your blood like nothing else.”

  He let his gaze slowly travel the length of my body.

  Yes, your creepiness. Because every badass woman off by herself was clearly lost.

  Jerk.

  “Eyes are up here.” And then I hurled my dagger straight for his throat.

  He dematerialized instantly, the knife passing harmlessly through him. The world around me spun, the dark cold green of the trees and clean white of the snow blurring as I hit the ground, performing a sweep kick of the area where I’d just stood.

  He resolidified a split-second later. My heel caught the back of his ankle, tossing him on his leather-clad butt. Scrambling back, I drew a second dagger, the one Sofia had sent me for my last birthday.

  Pro Tip: Werewolves can’t move faster than vampires, so don’t count on that saving you in a fight. Sofia had drilled that into me more ti
mes than I could count the year I’d been trapped on her ranch, forcing me to learn to fight out in the Caldwell barns first in the daylight, then at night, then blindfolded with earplugs in. Never before this moment had I been more grateful to have a former Tracer as my sire and teacher.

  I felt an urgent push in the back of my mind. I shut it out, needing every bit of my concentration here in this fight if I was going to survive.

  “I can’t wait to taste you.” Throwing his hair back over one shoulder, he flipped a nasty twelve-inch blade I had no interest in getting better acquainted with. “Where shall I start?”

  “Jam that knife up your ass and twist.”

  Laughing sadistically, he lunged, striking hard in an upper hand blow I barely had the strength to parry. I ducked back behind a tree.

  “Someone wants to play.”

  I hooked a finger beneath a snow-laden branch, sweeping it back in his face and buying me the second of distraction I needed to slam the heel of my hand into his chin. He snarled. I raised an eyebrow.

  It. Was. On.

  Snow swirled around us in an eerie white veil. We met blow for blow. Block. Parry. Thrust. I let him drive me back, inching closer and closer to the barbed wire fence where Hayden’s tracks had disappeared. His hand slipped beneath the lapel of his coat, withdrawing a small silver cylinder identical to the one I’d found discarded in the snow.

  And I knew I was out of time.

  We had no confirmed data on how the Project Eclipse agent worked. Did it have to be injected or inhaled? Maybe, like wolfsbane, it absorbed within seconds through the skin.

  “You know what this does?”

  “Nothing in the minty-fresh breath aisle, I’m guessing.”

  The push came again at the back of my mind, this time more insistent.

  Wait, I ordered, knowing we would get only one chance.

  “How do you think we took all the others?”

  “You bastard.” Sidestepping, I slashed in a sharp diagonal arc.

  “Your friends can search all they want. They’ll never find you.”