Broken Blood

by Heather Hildenbrand

  I thought about the black wolf upstairs and how much he reminded me of the one I’d locked up with Olivia back at Steppe’s lab. She’d brought her army, all right. And they’d never liked me.

  It hadn’t been an ambush; it had been a rescue mission. Pure and simple.

  “I came here on behalf of Principal Whitfield,” Kane said.

  “Why did he send you here?” I asked, struggling to refocus as my temper stirred and swirled my disjointed thoughts.

  Kane’s mouth tightened, pulling on the nasty scar. A few weeks ago, I would’ve been intimidated by that, but now I couldn’t get past the anger. “Because, hybrid war or not, fugitive or not, life goes on, Tara. Your friends are missing from school. Clearly, they’ve chosen you over higher education, but it’s not their choice to make.”

  “Cambria?” I asked, anger and confusion muddling his words.

  “And Victoria. And Logan. They need to return or face disciplinary action.”

  “But...” I looked at Wes, but he said nothing. “They didn’t choose me,” I said. “They’re in danger. If they go back there—”

  “They’ll be protected,” he finished. “They’d be safer at Wood Point. So would you for that matter.” His words were gentle but more a slap in the face than a comfort since we both knew I couldn’t return as long as I was a fugitive—or a Dirty Blood. His compassion only fed my anger.

  “We both know I’m not welcome there,” I said.

  “You’ll need to fix your legal problems first,” he admitted and glanced at Steppe before stepping over him and heading for the stairs.

  “Where are you going?” I asked.

  He turned back, his scar nothing more than a jagged rivet across his cheek in the shadows. “To speak with Edie. And to get some help cleaning up down here.”

  I stared after him, my temper leaking away with every breath and blink. Wes stood by, watching me. I felt his eyes but I didn’t turn. In the absence of the anger, I saw the truth. Kane was right. My friends were better off at school. Maybe Cambria had been right to listen to my mom and keep me out of the fighting.

  I couldn’t lead, not when I broke confidences and exploited trust in the face of danger or obstacles. Not when Steppe controlled me this way.

  Steppe, chest heaving and shirt soaked in blood, eyed me as I padded past him toward the stairs. He looked terrible, but I knew from the bond that he wasn’t in danger of anything worse than a piercing flesh wound. Nothing Fee couldn’t fix.

  “Tara?” Wes called behind me. “Where are you going?”

  I stepped over Olivia. Our last hope.

  “I’ll send Jack and Fee down for him. I need some air,” I said. “Don’t follow.”

  If he wanted to protest, he didn’t show it. I could practically hear the words forming on his tongue. “Be careful,” he called after me.

  I didn’t answer.

  Chapter Eighteen

  I ran fast and far—until my lungs burned and my paws ached and my wolf wanted to disappear. Several miles from the house, in the depths of thick woods, I crept into an abandoned hunting cabin and snatched a pair of sweats and a hoodie and shifted back to two legs. Back outside, I ran again, this time in loose-fitting hiking boots and oversized socks. My chest heaved and my lungs ached but I pushed on.

  The sun had arched from the eastern horizon to just above the tips of the trees to my left by the time I stopped to rest. Inside my head, Steppe’s voice echoed off the otherwise empty space, coating it with accusations and guilt-laden reasoning. But there was nothing left for him to accuse or convict me for. I’d done it all myself already.

  There was nothing left of my temper. Only quiet understanding that I’d been foolish yesterday to assume I could lead. Victoria’s words echoed back at me like a bad dream.

  I had not always been a leader.

  I’d always been a dictator. There was a huge difference. Immune did not make me immortal. And in charge did not make me elected.

  It didn’t matter anyway. Olivia was dead. Cord refused to step up. By the time we dismantled Steppe’s seat of power or his cruel new laws, every hybrid would be dead, including me and my friends. The attacks were never going to stop. In fact, I suspected Kane’s arrival to retrieve my Hunter friends stemmed from his own theory—one that Wes shared and who knew how many others. Pretty soon, it might not only be the angry ex-allied Werewolf packs attacking us. It might be Hunters too.

  I paused to drink from a stream that ran down the hill I’d come over. The sounds of the Shenandoah forest in winter were muted. Crunching leaves, wind rustling through nearly naked branches, the distant call of a crow.

  It felt lonely.

  Almost as lonely as I had been in that cell. I wondered if I’d ever really forget or recover from those weeks he’d held me in solitary. Or if I’d ever be free of his smug voice in my mind, holding that time over my head like a last victory.

  I won. I always win.

  If I’d had anything left to give, I would’ve summoned up actual hate. But I couldn’t quite find it in me to feel anything quite that hard.

  We were losing, I thought dully. Fast.

  Behind me, leaves crunched in a staggered but quick rhythm and I whirled. Even without my wolf’s heightened senses I knew it wasn’t a squirrel. Those were footsteps. I held my breath, scanning the naked trees that blotted out the shiny daylight that filtered down to the forest floor.

  The sound grew louder as the intruder got closer. Whoever it was, they weren’t even trying to be stealthy. By the time I spotted him zigzagging along the trail at a jog, my panic was a heavy taste in my mouth.

  “There you are,” he said, slowing to a stop.

  “Alex,” I breathed. I rested my palm on the nearest tree trunk for support. “What the heck are you doing out here?”

  “Running a marathon, apparently,” he said, propping his hands on his knees as he worked to catch his breath. “Since when do you run farther than the nearest snack machine?”

  I rolled my eyes. “Since I screwed everything up.”

  He straightened to his full height and his eyes sparkled. “So, just a normal day, then. Here I thought it was something serious.”

  “Not in the mood, Channing,” I said. I used his last name, like we always had when he’d been my trainer and only barely my friend. Instead of all this ... whatever we were.

  But Alex ignored my attempt to keep him at arm’s length. He stepped closer, invading my personal space and my thoughts before I could prepare. “What are you in the mood for?” he asked quietly.

  I opened my mouth, but no sound came. My racing pulse suddenly had nothing to do with cardio. “Running,” I said, stepping back and shaking my head to clear it.

  Alex grinned. “I knew I’d convert you eventually.”

  I glared and started walking instead. Alex didn’t move.

  “If you insist on staying, you can walk with me,” I threw over my shoulder.

  Alex appeared at my side and fell into step without another word.

  The trail was easy to follow here, winding but wide enough for two. The silence continued and the longer we walked, the more comfortable it became.

  The woods began to change, the trees spreading farther apart. There were more pines and evergreens than oaks. Moss dotted the floor in a few places, untouched by the frosty winter.

  I folded my arms, tucking my hands into my sides to keep them warm. Now that I wasn’t running, the chill seeped in. I glanced up at the sun wandering toward the center of the sky and sighed. We needed to start for home before they sent a search party. Alex knew it too from the way his eyes tracked my line of sight.

  Stubbornly, I kept walking.

  My stomach growled and I licked my dry lips on a heavy sigh. “We can head back now,” I said finally.

  “Okay.”

  I scowled. “Don’t be sarcastic.”

  Alex’s lips twitched but he said nothing.

  “Olivia’s dead,” I said a few minutes later as the pines fad
ed back into oaks.

  “I know.”

  “It wasn’t an ambush, it was a rescue,” I added.

  “I know,” he said again.

  “She escaped to attack. She hurt Steppe because she knew it would hurt me,” I said.

  “She was a sick person. Reminds me of her son.”

  I glanced over and found him watching me. The concern in his slanted brows reminded me of memories I hadn’t thought of in a long time. Alex had been there for me when Miles had been stalking me. He’d saved me more than once. And he’d first kissed me right smack in the middle of a freak out I’d had over seeing Miles on school grounds.

  My eyes fell from his knitted brows to the shape of his lips before I could stop myself. I looked away quickly and stared at my feet as they navigated the path. The air between our arms suddenly felt more like a magnet or a gravitational field of attraction. He doesn’t love you. He loves the idea of you.

  Alex stopped walking and I felt my cheeks heat at whatever he was about to say. I braced myself for some teasing come-on or cheesy pick-up line, but he didn’t do either. Instead, he spread his arms wide and looked right and left. “Recognize it?” he asked quietly.

  “Recognize what?” I asked.

  “We’re not far from Wood Point. We used to run through here.”

  The moment he said it, I realized where we were. This was one of our favorite places—okay, favorite was a strong word for me when it came to working out—to run together back when Alex had been my trainer.

  “Everything’s so much different now than it was then,” I said wistfully.

  “Would you go back if you could?” he asked.

  “Would you?”

  He stared at me like he could see directly inside me. I shivered and he blinked, the spell broken. “Living in the past isn’t healthy,” he said.

  “Well, the present isn’t very healthy either. In fact, it’s kind of a threat to my health—or life in general,” I said.

  “Which is why I prefer to keep moving forward.”

  “You think we have a future?” I asked. The second the words were out, my cheeks flamed. “I mean, that came out wrong. Do you think we could ... all of us, you know, win or live or whatever?” I mumbled.

  Alex smiled. “I think your future is bright, Tara Godfrey,” he said. “I’m just happy to be in your orbit.”

  I wasn’t sure what that meant but I was too afraid to ask. I started walking again. Alex joined me. “Kane wants Cambria, Logan, and Victoria to return to school,” I said for lack of something better.

  “Do you think that’s wise?” he asked.

  “I ... it’s not up to me,” I grumbled.

  “Sure it is.”

  “No, it’s not. Kane made that clear. So did Cambria, Cord, and my mother. I don’t run their lives. I can’t force anyone to do anything.”

  “No one said anything about forcing. But you get to weigh in on—”

  “Why?” I demanded. “Why should my opinion carry any weight, even a single ounce? Cord was right. Who died and left me in charge? No one, that’s who. And besides, I’d only screw it up. Screw them all up. I don’t have experience. I don’t know the right thing.”

  “Being a leader isn’t about knowing the right thing,” he shot back. His voice rose until it was a perfect match for my own angry words. His eyes blazed with conviction and, just like Cord had, he poked my shoulder with his finger as he talked. “You don’t need to know everything or be everything to everyone. Being a leader means you care. You care more about who you’re leading than you do about yourself sometimes. You’d lay down your life for your friends. Regardless of whether they want your help, they’re getting it, because you care. And nothing’s going to keep you from protecting those you love. And in the middle of all that, because you care, you do the whole thing with integrity and love and compassion. All of that makes you a leader. All of that makes you a badass. The kind of badass that kicks her trainer in the crotch in order to show him they’re equal. In order to make him love her.”

  I opened my mouth—though I had no idea what I should say—but he cut me off and kept talking. “Cord was wrong. She was angry so she was being a bitch and she was wrong. When do you listen to her, anyway?”

  “I—”

  “Victoria had it right. You’ve always been a leader. We’ve always been waiting for you to see it. But it’s time now. No more waiting.”

  “I can’t—”

  “You can,” he interrupted. “Remember Vera’s visions of you? You can do this.”

  I eyed him, frowning. “You didn’t let me finish.”

  “I don’t need to. Whatever it is, you can. I’ve known that about you since the day we rolled down that hill together. If you want to lead, you can. If you want to save everyone, you can. If you want to kiss me again, you can.”

  “Alex,” I warned.

  His mouth quirked. “It’s a hard choice, I know.”

  “It’s not a hard choice,” I said.

  “Right. I forgot. You said you’ve always known.”

  I gave him an apologetic look, but he shook his head. “That wasn’t meant to be a dig or anything. I mean it. As far as choosing a path to lead from, you’ve always known that too. You’re just afraid.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Please. I’ve never needed to get inside your head to know what you’re thinking. I knew it that first day I ever kissed you. And the second.” He grinned but it fell away quickly. “And in the hotel, I knew then,” he said quietly.

  “But you kissed me anyway. You tried, anyway,” I said.

  “What would we be without our convictions and our efforts?”

  It sounded like something Professor Kane would say. Or Vera. I scowled because, once again, we were talking about two things at once.

  “Not as hopeless,” I muttered.

  “I’m not hopeless,” he said. He reached up and smoothed my hair away from my face, his fingertips brushing a cold trail down my cheek. “Sometimes love is temporary, for a purpose. Doesn’t make it an ounce less worth it.”

  My head snapped up and I stared at him. The wind pricked at the edges of my eyes, drawing moisture to the corners. Or that’s what I told myself. His expression was so calm, so serene. I stumbled over my words, feeling awkward but unable to keep from asking.

  “You don’t love me anymore?” I whispered and the old panic from earlier threatened to climb up my chest and into my mouth. I stepped closer, willing him to argue. To swear things. For some reason, this felt scarier than that. This felt new, like turning a corner. I didn’t want to see what lay around it.

  But he shook his head and whispered, “You don’t need me to.”

  When his hand dropped away, my skin went cold. Was he right? Did I not need that from him? If that were true, why had I ever needed it in the first place?

  I swallowed. “I’m sorry, Alex.”

  “Don’t be, Godfrey. Don’t ever be sorry.”

  “I don’t know what to do,” I whispered, thick tears leaking into my eyes as I admitted the thing I’d been terrified to say. This was the reason for my guilt and my shame. And my temper.

  With Olivia gone and Cord stubbornly resolved, I had no idea what to do next.

  Alex took my hand, squeezed, and led the way back onto the path that would take us home. “My advice,” he said casually as we walked, “is to get that weasel out of your head.”

  “Right, because that’s easy enough.” I snorted. But it worked. I no longer felt ready to cry.

  Alex glanced sideways at me. “Have you talked to your boyfriend lately?”

  Something about his voice told me he already knew the answer. “Why?” I asked.

  “The only person on this planet more determined than you is him.” Alex shook his head and I watched in a sort of awe at the lack of animosity in him as he spoke of Wes. When the heck had that happened?

  “What does that mean?” I asked.

  “It means he’s been sweet talking craz
y Uncle Astor to pretty please up his genius and figure out a way separate you from your basement-squatting brain buddy.”

  “That’s not possible,” I began, but Alex squeezed my hand.

  “I’ve learned nothing is impossible,” he said, his words an exact replay of the ones Wes had spoken. “Especially for you.”

  Hearing them from Alex made me smile, but it was nothing compared to the feeling I had when Wes had said them. Alex had always believed in me. From day one. Sort of an innocent until proven guilty. With Wes, I’d had to earn it.

  And it looked like I finally had.

  Maybe Alex was right about my being a leader, but he was wrong about one thing. And so was Cord and Victoria and all of them. I hadn’t always been this dormant badass leader just waiting to realize it. I’d been a normal teenager, clueless, unworthy, and fumbling. But, somewhere along the way, I’d been molded.

  Shaped and sculpted through trials and fires and loss. And now I was something capable. If Alex was right about my caring, if love and commitment to the safety of my friends and family qualified me, I could lead whomever and whatever.

  And maybe I couldn’t save us a single individual. But that’s not what leaders did. Leaders stood at the head of the line and marched everyone through the battle to the safety on the other side. We’d do this thing as a team.

  One army. One family. One race.

  I smiled, squeezed Alex’s hand, and let him lead me home.

  Chapter Nineteen

  From the hill at the edge of the woods, Professor Flaherty’s house was a deceiving Stepford. The view from the back looked quiet and serene—if you pretended not to notice the two broken windows and the patches of bloody fur matted to the grass in places. But from a distance, it was utterly uniform. A carbon copy of the rest of the street: unassuming suburbia at its best. I still had no idea why Flaherty would choose a place like this when she was so completely unlike the picture she was creating for herself. Or maybe that was my answer.

  Alex and I got as far as the woods’ edge before we ran into company. I sensed him before I saw him and judging from the way the hair on Alex’s arms stood up, he did too. But, unlike Alex, I recognized the flash of fur as it darted among the holly bushes bordering the ravine below.