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

by Kat Kinney

  “What happened back there? You just disappeared. I thought—”

  “The vamp who ambushed me had a vial of the Project Eclipse drug, was going to dose me with it, but at the last second, one of the others stopped him. Apparently, it’s in short supply. Besides, they wanted to use me to lure the rest of you here.”

  “You blocked me?”

  “August knew where we were the entire time. We weren’t in any real danger.” She turned to the vampires down in the snow. “We need them alive. It’s time we got answers.”

  “We’ll turn them over to the Council—”

  Just then Topher broke away from the group. At first, I didn’t understand what was happening. Not when he knocked me aside. Not when Cal, coming upon the scene with Brody and Naomi, shouted out a warning. Not until the vampire lying bleeding in the snow extended a hand, and like a wounded animal, Topher reached out for his former master.

  Time crystalized as the terrible scene unfurled around us, already set in motion, impossible to stop. Hayden reached out to grasp his scarred arm. Cal spoke in a low but urgent tone. Topher didn’t seem to register any of us. And now I was kicking myself for thinking a haircut and clean clothes somehow changed the equation after the guy had been held prisoner and tortured for a year.

  Topher’s fingers were inches from the vampire’s bloody hand when West slammed into him from behind, tackling him into the snow.

  “Get them cuffed,” someone shouted. There was a scramble for shackles. Brody leveled a rifle at the head of the female undead, but it was too late. With a sharp crack, both vampires vanished, leaving only a trail of crimson blood staining the snow.

  Cal swore. “Think there’s any chance the owners thought all those sniper rounds were a car backfiring?”

  Ethan made a derisive sound under his breath. “After midnight? Out in the middle of nowhere?”

  “Yeah. We gotta get outta here.” Brody surveyed the field. “Cal, you and—"

  But before he could finish, West yanked Topher up by the collar and slammed him up against the side of the barn. “Do you have a death wish?”

  They were both covered in snow, chests heaving, faces inches apart. Topher bared his teeth. “Go. To. Hell.”

  “That’s not an answer.”

  “Dude,” I started, but West cut me off with a growl.

  “No. I get that they fucked you up. Royally. I’ve tried to be patient. You want to take out my family in your sick quest to go back to them? You can get a goddamn bus ticket for all I care. I’m done.”

  They glared, frozen breaths swirling together. Brody shot a look at Cal, who subtly shook his head. And then—

  “They’re going to kill my brother,” Topher exploded, shoving West away.

  West staggered back, snowflakes swirling eerily down around us as we all gaped.

  “Toph—”

  Visibly shaking, Topher sagged back against the barn. “Kieran’s the one who took me in after our mom and her boyfriend took off, okay? The shifters holding me at the compound said all along if I ever tried to run, they’d kill him. They knew our home address, knew the bar where he worked. The night I escaped, I called him, told him what happened to me. He didn’t believe me, said I was full of shit. I think… fuck, I think he thought I was high. I told him he had to disappear.”

  “I didn’t know.”

  They locked eyes for a long moment. Topher’s gaze flitted away.

  “If I don’t go back, they kill him, get it? So save me your self-righteous bullshit, boy scout, when we both know you’d do the same goddamn thing if it were one of them in trouble.”

  He jerked his chin at me, Brody, Cal and Ethan, silently looking on.

  I asked quietly, “Are you sure they have him?”

  Topher bent over double and coughed, looking frailer and more haggard than ever. Like we hadn’t been feeding him at all these past two months. No, like he’d been purposefully starving himself as punishment. I met Cal’s eyes across the clearing. His expression was grim.

  “By now? Yeah, I’m sure. No way could he have survived on the streets this long.”

  “You did,” Lacey pointed out. “And that still doesn’t explain why you’ve got every vampire for hundreds of miles coming after you.”

  The wind gusted violently. Topher shivered. West started forward, starting to shrug off his fleece, but Brody put out a hand to stop him.

  “Answer the question,” he growled, voice infused with Alpha power. “This ends tonight.”

  Topher scraped a hand over his face, the dark circles under his eyes more prominent than ever. “You know what the undeads did to me, how they… used me. They fed from me every night. All those days, weeks and months ran together until I lost track of how many times, how many violations, how many months had passed since I’d last seen sunlight, last felt grass under my feet.”

  He stared down at his wrists. Intricate tribal tattoos covered his arms, partially obscuring the black silver burns from a year spent in shackles. But the scars from so many feedings were another story, silver track marks puncturing every visible vein, the silver and enzymes in the vamp blood having prevented him from fully healing.

  West’s hands had balled into fists. He caught me staring and looked away.

  “I don’t know if it was the hundredth time one of them fed from me or the thousandth, but eventually I began to notice a sort of twitching under my skin anytime one of their kind came near, a sort of headache at the base of my skull.”

  “You’re telling us you’ve got a spidey-sense for vamps?” Lacey said sharply.

  Brody propped his hands on his hips, pacing the length of the clearing.

  I shook my head. “Look, man, we all want to believe you. But you’d think if what you’re describing was possible, we would’ve heard of it by now.”

  “Tracers have recovered blood slaves alive,” Cal said quietly. “It’s just that the ones who’ve been held for more than a year rarely make it out mentally intact, at least according to Mom.”

  “You think there were others, that the Council’s known about this and been keeping it quiet?”

  “Just ask yourself what they stand to gain.”

  A shifter who could sense the presence of vamps? The Tracers would be all over that.

  Something Brody had said days before stirred in my memory.

  The Council wasn’t going to try to rehabilitate Topher at all until we offered to take him in.

  Had that been their plan all along, to pretend Topher had died, then try to recruit him, or hope he caused too many problems in Blood Moon so that when he was sent back later, questions wouldn’t be raised?

  “We should put out feelers, see if we can get information from Mom or River—”

  “So help me, I will smash every phone in this clearing if I have to,” West growled. “We don’t tell anyone. This information is too sensitive. If it leaks—”

  “He’s right,” Cal said. “This has to be kept need to know. That means not even River.”

  Brody rubbed his stubble. Trying to keep things from our youngest brother was hell on a logistical level. And when he found out we’d all been in on it—

  West leveled Topher with a look. “You’re going to have to trust us.”

  “Yeah?” Cold gunmetal eyes met his. “You trust a lot of people that keep you locked in a cage?”

  Closest to him, Lacey shifted, prepared to cut off his access to the woods in case he tried to run. West started to say something, but before he could, Topher’s head snapped to the north. His eyes glazed over, instantly losing focus, and I knew we’d run out of time.

  I didn’t feel my feet begin to move, wouldn’t recall until later shoving West to the ground or the frantic shouts of my brothers as I hurled myself across the clearing.

  In front of Lacey.

  A split second later, a fierce crack rent the air, the second wave of vampires materializing right on top of us. For the space of a breath, time seemed to freeze. I saw the flash of the blade a
split second before white-hot pain lanced through my chest, the force of the accompanying body blow knocking me back into the snow. A scream rent the air. I gasped, choking on the hot, metallic taste of blood.

  Arms locked me in an iron grip, silver snowflakes whipping upwards into the black abyss of the winter night. I clung to Lacey’s heartbeat, every terrified, frantic pulse a warm reassurance she was safe.

  She and our baby would live.

  The vampire hissed over me, hand poised on the hilt of the knife.

  “Go to hell,” I growled just as the stars went black.

  14

  Lacey

  OKAY, SO I MIGHT HAVE STARTED TO GO A LITTLE BUFFY on the last vamp. But you try being tied up in a barn while the undead talk about making you into a walking bag of O-neg and see if it doesn’t give you pent-up aggression issues. The second wave didn’t stay long. The instant they realized they weren’t going to be able to grab Topher and ghost out, they ditched the scene. I had no sooner jammed a stake into the shoulder of the closest fang-head when I whirled in time to see Dallas fall.

  And my heart stopped.

  There are some things you can never prepare for, like the feeling of coming unrooted the first time you leave home, the thrill of new freedoms, hole-in-the-wall restaurants to explore and the giddy buzz of independence tempered by the uncertainty of unfamiliar sheets when you go to sleep at night. You never forget your first huge betrayal, whether it’s a lie from someone you thought you could trust, or a secret that leaves you alone in a house full of strangers as one by one your bones snap and reform under the light of the full moon. But maybe the worst is the devastation of losing someone before you’ve had the chance to tell them how desperately you need them to stay. Dallas Caldwell had already been taken from me once before. I couldn’t lose him again.

  I tried to catch him, tried to cradle his head before it could hit the hard-packed earth. His hair spilled through my fingers, dark blond strands cast silver in the moonlight. Hot crimson blood pulsed from the wound in his chest. Quickly, I applied pressure with shaking fingers.

  “Naomi,” I screamed as Dallas’s eyes drifted closed.

  “Brody, get over here.” Naomi was deadly calm, unzipping a black duffel bag and tearing open supplies. “He’s bleeding out. West, I need an evac—”

  “On it.”

  Topher shoved past Ethan and Hayden, who’d been monitoring him. “I can help.”

  Brody didn’t look up, tearing open gauze pads while Naomi established an airway. “Back off. We’ve got it covered.”

  “I was an EMT.”

  Typing into his phone, West started to respond. Brody cut him off.

  “Your call,” he said to Naomi.

  She jerked her chin. “Get over here and bag him.”

  While Topher gloved up, Naomi started an IV line. I held pressure even as blood began to seep through layers of gauze pads, a cold weight settling in my chest as I watched Dallas’s eyelids flutter.

  You can’t die, I begged, my heart threatening to shatter into a thousand pieces.

  Maybe fear was a self-fulfilling prophecy. My mother hid from the monsters of the outside world. Dallas practiced the fine art of self-destruction. I’d convinced myself nothing in life was permanent, that no one ever stayed. And all I’d managed to do was wall off my heart so nothing good could take root.

  Dallas Caldwell had an ego the size of Texas. He watched the Cowboys play every Sunday like it was a religion, shouting plays from beside a grill loaded up with enough meat to feed an army of werewolves. He’d swear until he was blue in the face that jeans and ratty flip flops were okay to wear to the grocery store or to church, and no way in hell did I believe he wasn’t the one who’d replaced all the takeout menus in my kitchen drawer with fakes so that every time I tried to order my favorite spicy chicken wings, I got a male escort service instead.

  Which, okay, was some epic level pranking.

  I thought back to that day I’d pictured a future for us, one where a tow-headed boy and an impish girl with my gray eyes licked chocolate icing from a sticky pair of spoons. Humid summer nights spent making homemade ice cream on a wide back porch. A midnight-black cat that stalked fireflies through the dewy grass. A barefoot and grinning Dallas blowing a raspberry on the girl’s cheek while she shrieked and clutched a football, the boy trying to climb him like a tree. Me, snapping pictures on my phone as the brilliant Texas sun shone overhead.

  Our family. Our future. No regrets.

  And I hoped I wasn’t too late to tell him.

  I poured everything I had through the link between our wolves, no more reservations, no holding back. He had to survive because I wasn’t ever letting him get away again.

  Dallas’s eyelids fluttered.

  West pocketed his cell. “That was August. The evac team is four minutes out.”

  Naomi injected something into Dallas’s IV line. “Okay. Let’s get him ready to move.”

  I blinked back tears. Dallas was going to be okay. Had to be—

  A hand clawed for my wrist. I jumped. Eyes the clear cerulean blue of the last days of summer pierced mine.

  “Dallas,” I gasped, bending to kiss his forehead, his eyebrows, the freckled spot at the tip of his left ear, anywhere and everywhere I could reach.

  Voices sounded from somewhere out in the trees. I looked up in time to see two pack medics, a volunteer firefighter and Brody’s partner down at the sheriff’s department, carrying in a stretcher.

  Dallas’s fingers twined weakly in my hair. Beneath the oxygen mask, I swore I saw his lips part.

  “Don’t try to talk,” I whispered.

  He did anyway, forming the words in a mental caress.

  Love you.

  Tears blurred my vision. As the first responders rolled him onto a stretcher and Naomi moved me aside to go with the transport team, I thought my heart would explode.

  “Come back to me.”

  And then, just like that night ten years before, Dallas Caldwell was gone.

  * * *

  Being a shifter meant you couldn’t just walk into your local human hospital or urgent care with a gunshot wound, get prepped for surgery, then bite everyone in the recovery room when your doctors freaked out over the fact that their incisions were already starting to close. And just like in the human medical system, the large urban packs had most of the doctors and all the state-of-the-art surgical centers. The good news? The Council had mandated they had to accept all patients from the rural packs, regardless of whether or not we were currently leaving flaming bags of dog poop outside each other’s pack houses. The bad? They could be as witchy as they wanted about it. As in, the North Austin pack took Dallas, and wouldn’t let any of us into their compound with him.

  The next twenty-four hours crawled by. Texas being Texas, the weather warmed up the following morning, melting away our brief encounter with snow. I scrubbed my hair with vanilla-coconut shampoo until it no longer smelled of scorched Christmas trees and the undead. Grabbing a lint roller and Dallas’s vacuum, I proceeded to perform an exorcism of his living room, finding three Junior Mints, a hair tie and the lost remote in my search of the sofa cushions. Godiva’s food disappeared every time I left the room. Wondering whether I should call my mother, I instead typed in searches for cat alien abduction, giant cat magnet, and—

  Seriously. I was so ordering that.

  Me: Have we heard anything? My stress baking has reached epic proportions. *cat emoji*

  West: Am an ass for mansplaining, but as I am the dark furry one’s favorite uncle and you potentially have pregnancy brain, I’m just going to come out and say it. Do not bake your cat.

  Me: Don’t make me cut off your cupcake supply.

  West: Cupcakes, you say? I can come over there and wait with you—

  Gravel crunched as someone pulled into the drive. I leaped off the couch, flying for the front door. The first thing I saw was the way Dallas’s shoulders flexed as he unfolded himself from the back of a sleek blac
k Audi. Then the gun show, because of course he was wearing a white cotton tee like it was the middle of June instead of forty-five degrees out. He reached in to grab a plastic grocery bag of what looked to be clothes, and the afternoon sun cast his hair pale as late summer wheat, just like it had the first day we met.

  “Hey, man. Thanks for the lift. Call me next time you’re in town. Ribs are on me.” Rapping the roof of the Audi, he shut the door a second before I launched myself at him.

  Dallas made a little oof sound and staggered back, arms coming up to encircle me. The sack of clothes landed somewhere off in the grass. “Damn, sweetheart. You trying to kill me?”

  I growled. “Not. Funny.”

  Laughing, Dallas let me slide down his body. He waved to the werewolf pulling out of the drive. I frowned. Was that—?

  Seeing me, Simon, from the North Austin pack, offered a hesitant wave. After a second, I lifted my hand.

  Dallas kissed the tip of my nose. “He was the one who performed my surgery. Totally saved my ass. Says to tell you hello, by the way. I hung out with a couple other guys from their pack while I was in recovery. They were cool. It’s their Alpha and senior leadership who are the problem.”

  I rolled my eyes. Because of course Dallas Caldwell would make friends with the jerks who’d kept him in lockdown for the past twenty-four hours. Knowing him, they’d probably gone out to Torchy’s for tacos, then played a round of frisbee golf. I pulled him to a stop as we neared the front porch, burying my face in his neck. Dallas bent down to fold me into a tight hug, rocking me slowly back and forth, our bodies pressed close together so that I could feel his heart thrumming strong and sure beneath my ear.

  “I’ve never been so scared. You were bleeding out into the snow and I was sure I’d lost you. All I could think was how we’d wasted so much time, and how there were so many things I would never get the chance to say to you if you never opened your eyes.”

  His hands came up to cup my face, thumbs smoothing across my cheekbones. “So say them now.”

  I released a breathy laugh, suddenly nervous. “You can kick my ass making a chocolate soufflé, which kind of makes me want to either burn down your kitchen or jump you.”