Crave: A Paranormal Shifter Romance (Blood Moon, Texas Shifters Series Book 2)
Page 21
“That just proves you don’t know my friends.”
Pale flecks of blue shimmered in his silver irises as he slowly inhaled. Like he got off on the smell of my fear. And loved playing with his food. “You’re going to die in the dark in a cell. Utterly forgotten and alone.”
“That’s the thing about being in a wolf pack.” I bared my teeth. “You’re never really alone.”
Now, August.
The world went supernova. At the top of the hill, the army of halogen floodlights surrounding the barn exploded into life, searing into my retinas with the force of a thousand burning suns. Behind me, the vampire screamed.
Point for the engineering geeks of the world.
By then I was already charging for the fence at a dead run. I felt the air swirl behind me as he pursued, the cold wrongness of his human smell sending my instincts screaming, my muscles burning as my legs fought to pump faster. I threw myself airborne with all that was left of my strength, leaving the ground a hairsbreadth before he did. The change tore me from my human skin, flesh and sinew splitting to form fur and bone. The wind shrieked in my wolf ears, the world a dizzying swirl of gray, yellow and blue, my vision sharpening just in time to see that I’d cleared the twisted strands of barbed wire below my hind paws. I came down hard on the far side of the fence, tumbling paw over tail across the frozen ground—
—and shifted back to human.
If I’d miscalculated, if I’d failed to bring anything back with me—
I came to rest flat on my back in the snow. The night sky vanished, a dark figure descending over me like Death incarnate, knife outstretched to slit my throat. Raw terror froze the blood in my veins, my vision blurring as the wolf tried desperately to force me to shift back, to lie down quietly and wait to die against every instinct our beast side possessed. Dallas roared in the back of my mind, his mental scream threatening to drown out my own.
But it was Sofia’s calm voice that overrode them all, the clarion memory of every grueling time she’d forced me through the change under the mercy of her power. Sick, shaking and bleeding, I’d transformed my bones, concentrated on the fiber in my clothes, memorized every weapon I would ever need to use by sight, by smell, by weight, and even by taste until I could come back through to the other side with blades, strapped in a vest, loaded down with ammo, and armed to the teeth just like any Tracer. Until I could have performed this task half dead.
Light roared back into the world. My lungs filled with air.
The Glock reformed in my hand.
I fired.
Crows scattered from nearby trees, scything up into the onyx night. The vampire fell to the ground. I drew a silver-tipped stake and stabbed him through the heart. Breathing hard, I scrambled for my phone.
“I wouldn’t do that,” said a cool voice from behind me.
One by one they emerged from behind the trees. The last five vampires. Three males. Two females.
And they had Hayden.
13
Dallas
“WILL YOU SLOW THE HELL DOWN?” West shouted over the howl of the wind.
Flattening my wolf ears in my brother’s direction, not that he could see, or for that matter, cared, I charged up the rocky embankment bordering a steep ravine. A frigid gust slammed into me from the north, pelting my coat with ice and sleet. The temperature was dropping steadily, and we had no cell reception. Once again, I reached out through the bond, feeling for Lacey. Her heartrate was elevated, the fractured images superimposing themselves across my field of vision revealing a nightmarish world of swirling snow and looming shadows. I growled. I never should have let us get separated. If anything happened to her—
A rangy black wolf cut me off at the top of the rise. I bared my teeth. Cal stared me down, eyes flaring amber in the dark, a reminder that even if we were brothers, he was still the pack second. Glowering, I looked away. Footsteps snarled up behind us in the freshly fallen snow.
“We need to regroup.” West gestured to an ice-encrusted live oak with a wicked scar from an old lightning strike. “We’ve passed this same tree three times now.”
Shifting to human, I grabbed a fallen branch and hurled it off into a ravine where it shattered in a spray of ice shards. “This is pointless. We’ve been out here for nearly an hour. There’s a vampire hunting party scouring the woods. And Hayden and Lacey—”
“I can stay here. Keep looking for Topher.”
My fingertips found the edge of Lacey’s claiming mark, the faintest brush opening the bond. Forked branches clawed at the night sky. Fog shrouded the cold black woods, distorting dark from light. A crow shrieked out in the empty void. Lacey gasped, whirling to scan a landscape where every distinguishing feature had been blurred by snow and ice. Through our synched breathing, I felt her begin to run.
“He’s chasing her. He’s… shit. It’s a vamp.” I staggered sideways, images of a fight slamming into my skull. The alcohol was burning off, but even after an hour it still felt like the forest was spinning every time I looked up too fast. My fault. All my goddamn fault. If I hadn’t gotten trashed—
“We’re still in a dead spot.” West cursed, typing furiously on his phone. “August won’t be able to send us coordinates.”
Beside me, Cal shifted to human. “How far are they?”
“I can’t tell. A mile, at least. Due north. Maybe more.”
“Let’s go. West can track Topher. He’s more likely to come to West if he’s alone.”
Lacey’s terror screamed through my blood. Gunshots rang out across the valley. One. Two.
The bond went dark.
“No.” My vision greyed out. The wolf fought to escape from my human skin, rage and grief splitting me in two. I made it twenty feet before Cal slammed me back into the nearest tree, jamming a wiry forearm into my chest. I fought like an animal, kicking and clawing, both of my brothers fighting to hold me down.
Shoving them away, I released a roar of anguish. Desperately, I searched for Lacey in the bond, for some faint phantom whisper of her presence, an echo, no matter how tiny, that would let me know she was safe. Alive.
Nothing. And I realized with a start as Ethan’s rage and grief screamed through our connection that I could no longer feel Hayden, either. My brothers had backed off, standing silently by.
Chest heaving, I lowered my head, addressing West. “You said Topher’s bonded to you.”
West gave me the same look he had the one time I’d suggested he shoehorn a dragon into this really lame, angsty break-up scene he’d been rewriting all night in one of his fics. Like he wanted to set me and my stupid ass hypothetical dragon on fire. “Come again?”
“You’re an Omega. Topher is bonded to you. He’ll come if you call him.”
“Dallas—” Cal started.
“Un-fucking-believable.” West let out a brittle laugh.
“Lacey and Hayden are in danger and we’re out here chasing a ghost. Topher’s the one they’re after. We all know it. If you get him to come to you, the vamps will follow.”
“If I slave him to my will, you mean? Twist my way into his head by force and manipulate every last shred of free agency and emotion he possesses so that he’s a fucking zombie, drooling at my every command? That’s your brilliant idea?”
“You did it before.”
“Okay, enough,” Cal cut in. “You’re not thinking straight and we both get that, but this isn’t getting us anywhere.”
“One more time for everyone in back—what happened the night Topher imprinted Was. An. Accident,” West growled. “And fuck you for rubbing it in my face.”
“So you’re just going to leave Lacey and Hayden to die?”
“Or maybe I’m just not willing to harm someone else as the lazy way out. And I can’t believe you of all people would ask.”
I bared my teeth. West glared back.
Cal stepped between us. “Let’s get to high ground. We’ll make contact with August, get their last known position—”
“I k
now where they are.”
As one, we turned. Topher stood at the edge of the snowy clearing. He wasn’t dressed for the cold, the Metallica tee, old canvas jacket and dark skinny jeans far too thin. Heavy silver shackles from back at the compound were clamped around his left wrist. That was how he’d been eluding us. Silver was toxic to shifters. When administered in low doses, it was used to control wolves in the feral community because of the way it suppressed the link our human sides formed with our wolves. Use enough of it and supposedly the effects were like being trapped in no-mans-land, numbed out, barely able to function. It was rumored that some of the larger urban packs had hidden underground prisons with silver built into the walls, preventing communication or escape.
“You shouldn’t have those on,” West said. “The silver—"
“Did I borrow your favorite pair or something?”
I clapped my hands. “Okay. Good talk. So the part where you can find Lacey and Hayden—?”
Topher worked his jaw. “Yeah. I can track them. But we need to go now.”
“How? They’ve gone off-grid.”
“Gonna have to trust me on that one.”
West scoffed. “Oh, okay, Mr. Told me he would be fine chilling for an hour with August. Mr. Promised he wouldn’t try anything. Mr. Fucking lied and acted like we had some goddamn heart to heart last night—”
“That what you’re so upset about?”
“Don’t start. You’ve been trying to escape for months. Trying to get back to them. I get that they messed with your head, but—”
“You think this is some Stockholm Syndrome bullshit?” Topher growled. “They held me like a goddamn animal in a cage for over a year and now I’m loyal to them?”
“Explain it to us, then,” Cal said, channeling his shrink voice like we weren’t out here in the middle of an ice storm with an army of the undead hoping to make us all into wolf-shaped throw pillows.
Topher glared. Cal stared back, face impassive. And all at once I remembered something West had told me right after Topher had come to stay in Blood Moon, that it was still excruciating for him to be around Hayden. He’d gone into Austin intending to warn her she was in danger, and accidentally bitten and changed her in a fit of feral wolf madness. Every time he saw her, he was reminded of what the wolves holding him had forced him to do each month at the full moon to other captives. And I knew then how we could get them both back. Maybe the only way.
“Let him go,” I said.
Topher eyed me warily.
“We’re going to make a trade.”
* * *
“You’ve really got some kind of death wish, huh?”
I shoved Topher hard. His hands were bound behind his back, and yeah, I hadn’t exactly been nice when tightening down the silver shackles. “Try not talking, Feral.”
“This is a stupid-ass plan.”
“Want to know what else is stupid? Chasing after a bunch of prickheads in the middle of a blizzard. Because, oh yeah, none of us would even be out here freezing our nuts off if it weren’t for you. So shut up and walk.”
He grunted, breath steaming the frozen night air. We crested the top of the next hill and emerged from the edge of the forest out onto the back acres of Jack Frost’s Christmas Tree Farm. Having come here with Lacey for the past five years, I could personally confirm every tree on the lot was identical down to the last twig, which didn’t stop Cupcake the snow elf from circling each one (and taking pictures—for comparison purposes) while I carried the gloves and saw (you know, the fun jobs) and got shot baleful looks every time I grabbed the closest victim and declared it perfect and, for fucks sake, could we please go already. Every dude there with their wives was in total solidarity with me, btw. The food truck out in the parking lot that sold cocoa and had a mini espresso bar had to be making a killing.
The valley was crisscrossed by irrigation ditches and muddy farm roads, heavy tractor treads carving deep furrows into the earth. A hundred yards away, an old red barn stood silhouetted against the winter sky. Christmas lights had been strung all along the eaves of the roof, with a miniature sleigh and four wooden reindeer prancing across the ridgepole, ready to take flight. Had to give these guys credit. They knew how to check off every last candy cane on a cozy country Christmas experience. Minus our current vampire hostage situation.
My brother’s death wish pet project and I were ten feet past the boundary line at the edge of the woods when a vampire materialized halfway between us and the barn. She started forward, snowflakes catching in her wispy pixie cut, making her look almost elf-like.
Yanking Death Wish to a stop by the back of his jacket, I slid the blade of my dagger to his jugular. The rules of engagement said neither side was served by the human authorities getting involved in supernatural business, which most of the time meant we fought using blades and fangs over bullets. The minute guns came onto the scene, there was always a clock counting down. Although given that the leeches had spent the last few weeks carrying out high-profile bombings and forcing werewolves to post terroristic threats on social media, all bets were probably off.
“That’s close enough.”
“You think I care if you kill him, mutt? You could have saved us the trouble of coming.”
“If you wanted him dead you could have taken him out a dozen times before now.” I jerked at the silver chains. “We both know you need him alive. So cut the crap.”
Topher glared over one shoulder. “You both want to quit discussing me like I’m a slab of meat?”
Pixie Cut sighed, looking bored. “Terms?”
“You have two of our people. Let’s deal.”
The vampire tilted her head. “And to think they wax poetic over the loyalty of wolves.”
“He’s not one of us. We were forced by the Council to take him in.”
The wind gusted, snow swirling up on the hillside where the old barn creaked under the weight of so much ice.
“Do you know the first thing they teach us about dealing with werewolves?”
“Enlighten me.”
Topher began to cough.
“You taste better before the blood has a chance to cool.”
Three vampires materialized right on top of us, blades drawn. Topher’s cuffs fell to the ground, a tremble barely visible in his hands as he slipped a concealed dagger from his sleeve and kicked the closest fang-head’s knife away. The change tore me from my human skin, my wolf exploding in the center of the vampires in a whirlwind of claws and teeth. Blow for blow, Topher and I fought them back. The vampire closest to me slashed in a sharp, low sweep. I leaped out of the way, crashing into a pint-sized Christmas tree. He landed on top of me, locking an arm around my neck. A fist slammed into my head. Stars exploded across my field of vision. I bit down on his arm. Another blow to the head nearly caused me to lose my grip. Black spots swarmed my vision. I locked my jaws, bearing down. I couldn’t let go. I had to get to Lacey—
A searing pain tore through my shoulder. Air rushed into my lungs, the black nothingness threatening to swallow me replaced by a dizzying explosion of stars. Gagging, I began to hack. Through a haze of pain, I rose on three paws. The vampire was backing away through the snow, clutching his wrist to his chest. A second later, he ghosted out.
The wind gusted, shards of ice pelting my muzzle as I took in the scene across the valley below. Topher had been joined by West, the two of them fighting side by side to drive two vampires back. The fang-head who’d nearly strangled me had rematerialized across the field at the barn with one of his friends, where Ethan was cut off from getting inside. Favoring my injured leg, I set off across the field, the cold blurring my vision as I cut between rows of trees.
Everybody down.
The command slammed into my mind like a rifle shot. My knees gave out, hard-packed earth rushing up to meet me. Shots rang out. Lying motionless in the snow, I shivered as the high-powered crack of a sniper rifle cut through the frozen night, jolting through my chest like an electric current.
And okay. So sometimes we broke the rules, too.
The second my oldest brother released me, I lurched up. Two bloodsuckers had been hit and from the looks of things, the others were now trying to ghost out. The vampire nation wanted Topher, and now they had confirmation he was here. If we didn’t end this tonight, Blood Moon would be painted with a permanent target, and no way in hell was I letting that happen.
The undead I had fought out in the field cradled his shattered wrist, blood trailing from a graze wound in his side. Ethan and West hurried up beside me, breathing ragged.
“Wait!” Lacey burst from the barn. Relief coursed through me. Her jacket was torn. There was a smudge of dirt on her cheek. She and Hayden were dragging a bound and gagged vampire between them. And damn if she wasn’t the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.
Ethan rushed to Hayden, yanked the undead from her hands and passed it off to West. “You okay?” he said roughly.
She caught the front of his tactical vest, pulling him to her for a kiss. “Hell yeah. Now that you’re here.”
He growled, wrapping her in a fierce hug and murmuring something into her hair that the wind stole away.
I barely noticed any of it. Charging across the clearing, I cradled Lacey’s face in my hands, bending to kiss the tip of her nose. “You scared the hell out of me, sweetheart.”
She gripped my wrists, thumbs stroking the backs of my hands, staring up at me like she never wanted to let me out of her sight. Suddenly she blinked. “You’re bleeding.”
“It’s just a scratch.” I kissed the constellation of freckles below her left eye.
“Oh, okay.” Catching my hand, she pulled me over to the med kit. I let her fuss with bandages and gauze, content to watch her little frown of concentration as she blew the hair out of her eyes, reassure myself that she was here, alive.